When is Technology Too Much?

Right now, the current trends in education are the Common Core State Standards and integration of technology in the classroom. Technology integration has really been a big focus of mine to learn how to effectively use it in my classroom. Most of what I have used in class has been a trial and error process and just trying to figure out what works. But when is technology in the classroom too much?

 

Last year, I bought my iPad and I went technology crazy. I researched, read, played and joined all sorts of PD communities trying to get an information overload. I was successful. I had so much information that I was thrilled to implement with my classes the following year! So at the beginning of this year, I passed on my information overload to my students. Within the first week I gave them access to my edmodo classroom, the eTextbook, a twitter hashtag to follow, a dropbox account, the textbook review website and a weekly online quiz website. Thats a lot of information to handle and I soon realized that I needed to backtrack. I had so many ideas of what to use, but I did not implement them in an effective manner. In my case, technology was too much.

 

From that sad day in class when my kids were ‘mindblown,’ I learned that just as the teachers are trying to figure out technology integration in their classrooms, so are the students learning how to use it in a manner that benefits their learning process. Teachers need to be mindful of this as they decide what technology to use in their lessons and ensure that even though there are so many ideas, programs, and apps to be used in this technologically focused world, not every one of them is going to be successful and act as an advancement to a lesson - some might be more detrimental than helpful.

 

So this brings up the question - how do you choose what to bring into your classroom and what to leave at the door? From the article How much Technology is Enough - or Too Much? by Gerald Kulm, he states “As we use technology in our own classes...we should pay attention to our responsibility as researchers.” Teachers learn from trial and error. We try new things and then we realize it didn’t work, so we try a different approach. This trial and error process is a great place to conduct hands on research with our students to find the best instructional strategies. For example, I learned from my experience this past year and would change the integration of more technology to small bits and pieces instead of mass amounts of information. Instead of just learning from our own mistakes, learn from others as well. This is where professional development comes into play. Hopefully your district is hosting guest speakers that do a great job at allowing you to practice with new technology before they expect you to implement it. Another great way is to conduct in-house PD. Some of the best PD I have attended has been presented by a person from our district that has had success with a program and wishes to share their success with others. So as you explore options of what technology to use with your classes, do research. Learn from your peers that have tried it before! Learn from blog posts! Some of the best information you can gain will be from those who have tried it before and have first-hand experience. Don’t be afraid to try new things, but be mindful of what you try and always focus on what is best for students.

Source:

Kulm, G. (2007, October). How Much Technology is Enough-- or Too Much?. School Science & Mathematics. pp. 220-221.  Retrieved from http://web.a.ebscohost.com.cyrano.ucmo.edu:2048/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?nobk=y&sid=c94929da-d91b-4bc4-be5c-b1a85777b7a3@sessionmgr4001&vid=3&hid=4206

Creative Ways to Review

The end of the year is always full of review before cumulative assessments.  The challenge for teachers is how to make the review fun and interactive for the kids yet still beneficial for them to review on their previously learned topics.  I am not a worksheet kind of teacher, so here are two of the ways I reviewed with my students before the big AP Biology Exam...(keep in mind they don't just have to be used for the advanced classes...it can be applied to any content area).

1.  Pretty Colors
For some reason...kids are always impressed with pretty colors, especially against dark backgrounds.  So I let them draw on the tables.  I have the black lab tables in my room and we used the Expo Window Markers. 

 Then I told them to draw a plant and animal cell on one side of the tables and a phospholipid bilayer on the other side.

 

  This is what they came up with!  Then we walked through everyone's drawings and fixed mistakes, added missing things, labeled and discussed functions.  It really led the kids to actively discuss and interact with each other.  We did this for several days with many different topics and every day the kids were highly engaged and had fun.

*I do give credit for this idea to a colleague of mine, Cassie Miller.  She came up with it is fantastic!*

2. Vocabulary Puzzle
For genetics, there is a lot of vocabulary and working out problems.  My kids had no problem with the example problems but kept getting the vocab confused...so I developed a little game. This is the idea...

 
Where you have shapes that have either terms, definitions or descriptions on all sides of a piece.  Then they match up with another piece to link a term and its description and then pair up all sides.  So i decided to make one with our genetics terms. Here is a picture of my kids working on it....

 

I told them it will make some sort of shape......and when they finish they get this! 

Its supposed to be a dog...they said it looked like a cat.  But it was a fun way to review vocab terms. Fair warning, it is a bit of work to but it all together, but i thought it was a lot of fun and the kids liked it. 

Good luck reviewing!