As a graduate student at Walden University, I am currently taking a course about technology's impact on education, work, and society. This week, I was able to obtain a brief overview of several different types of instructional technologies that can be incorporated into an educator's "toolbox" (Richardson, 2009, p. 9). These include weblogs such as the one I have started here, wikis, RSS feeds, and podcasting. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to learn about how I can implement these tools into my instructional methodology. This year in my ELA classes, I am looking forward to consistently using this blog with my 8th graders. While I am not yet quite as familiar with wikis and podcasts, I am looking forward to learning more about their uses during the coming weeks of my course. For those of you in my class, I am looking forward to continuing this journey with you!
On an additional note, this week I participated in a blog feed about the use of cell phones in the classroom. The article's focus was on how many students are actually using cell phones to cheat. While I understand this concern, I am interested in how we as educators can go about teaching our students to use this technology appropriately, while concurrently incorporating our students' obsession with cell phones as part of our instructional "toolbox." Does anyone have thoughts about this issue? How have you all implemented cell phones into your lesson plans in the past? Do you have ideas about how to utilize them without getting bogged down with the potential of cheating problems? Is anyone adamently opposed to incorporating cell phones in the classroom? I am very interested in everyone's thoughts on this issue. I hope everyone has a great week!
Reference:
Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteWhile I have not “officially” implemented cell phones into my lessons, I have allowed some students to use the calculator feature when we do projects. I have found the best way to curb any texting is to be very active in monitoring the class. I do have a rule for the state tests in my class to deter cheating, and that is where I collect all the cell phones at the start of the test. That way no student can text out. I only do this currently for the state tests, but have considered doing it for my own unit tests also. I am pretty good at catching texters though, and it does help that I have a cave of a classroom (no windows) so very few have reception in my class.
-Catherine Bennett