Technology - You Can Run But You Can't Hide

I am surrounded by technology all day and all evening. In fact, it is a great task to spend an evening without technology! My personal technology use includes blogging, researching, website development, social media and email. My professional technology use involved research, blogging, research, website development, email, chat, document production and sharing of media.

As a teacher, I will admit that technology has allowed me to search a large expanse of material. I have been able to implement ideas that I would have never dreamed of 10 years ago. I feel that students and teachers can be provided with the latest and greatest tools and techniques in minutes. Quite honestly, it is incredible!

I am not sure I would make any extreme changes personally or professionally. If I could change anything, I might consider limiting my computer time in the evening. I tend to fixate on topics or problems from work and bring them home with me. It is so easy to continue working when it is all in cyberspace or within my computer, iPad or Phone. Although, I appreciate the easy accessibility that technology provides.

Through the Eyes of a Student: A Day in the Life of Technology Integration

Recently, I had the opportunity to Job Shadow Mrs. Sellers who allowed me to observe her for part of a day to see if If I would be interested in her career field of technology, a growing career field. I job Shadowed on October 9th in the afternoon and shadowed at the middle school. I found the opportunity very beneficial for myself to see if I wanted to go into the career field of business. Organizing the job shadowing went easily as I was able to organize it a decent time ahead of the scheduled job shadow day. I delivered the request personally to Mrs. Sellars and figured out last minute planning by email.

I started off my day with attending morning classes though some students went to morning job shadows. Mrs. Sellers spent her morning working with a 6th Grade History teacher, meeting with an Art Teacher, contacting My Big Campus and watching a webinar. After I had finished my morning and lunch, I went with Brandon Hendricks to the middle school to meet up with Mrs. Sellers. When we found her, she was in the band room discussing digital communications with the band director.  Shortly after arriving, I was informed I would be participating in a meeting to help find ways to use technology for physical education and health classes for the teachers, Mrs. Pickle and Mr. Delph. During the meeting I was able to contribute to the meeting by giving ideas and giving input on suggested ideas. We spent about an hour on the meeting and found a way the teachers could use technology in the ways of using their iPads including project ideas. After the meeting we headed to Mrs. Smith's 6th grade geography class, I spent the rest of the day helping 6th grades with their current project as Mrs. Sellers was helping other students with their projects. Their project consisted of creating a keynote on their appointed country but required help on several aspects of using Keynote. During the time I also helped here and there with answering geography questions alongside technology questions.  In the time I was in Mrs. Smith's Class, I helped two periods.

I found the whole experience to be quite beneficial and insightful into if I wanted to go into the field of technology. I learned that some attributes that someone going into her career field are patience, an outgoing personality, being a risk taker, innovative, and be a life long learner. Though her job has a hectic schedule, split between meetings, classroom interactions, and researching, she still finds joy in her job and says she enjoys her job even when the technology does not work on occasion. In all, our technology staff works hard to allow our school to be able to use the technology we have effectively in the classroom and are innovative on progress of the technology in our school. During the job shadowing I was not able to job shadow Mrs. Fossi and Mr. Myers as they were running cable for our new wifi system. I learned quite a bit about the field alone with just Mrs. Sellers which has made an impression concerning what I wish to study in the future. Even if I do not major in Technology, I found my job shadow to be useful for practical use on using technology and how to help others with technology problems.  

Written By J. Young (South Vermillion Community Schools Senior)

Philosophy of Education - Technology Infused

An exemplary education should aim to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in a digital and progressive world. I believe that an eclectic array of learning environments, both traditional and digital, along with a balanced variety of teaching models can and will provide students with the modern, essential skills needed to succeed. As an educator, it is my responsibility to survey the needs of each class as well as each individual child to ensure the logical implementation of pedagogical approaches and environments.

I believe in providing a blended learning environment for all children. Not all students thrive in a digital world just as not all students thrive in a traditional classroom setting. An ideal balance of both not only provides exposure but allows students to determine which environment works best for them as well as allows them to develop the ability to function in their lesser preferred environment.

Additionally, I believe it is critical that students be afforded the opportunity to utilize Choice Theory, developed by William Glasser, in tandem with Project Based Learning. I have discovered that students find relevancy with content when they are given the opportunity to research and present it individually or in a group. Forcing students to learn content in a homogeneous manner limits their ability to dig deeper and discover answers to their questions. Therefore, it is imperative that we as educators offer choices and variety.

Children are not created in a mold and thus no child is exactly like another. It is critical that we use technology, learning environments and pedagogy to guide students rather than prescribe to students. In doing so, we create students who can seek information, solve problems and become life-long learners.

When considering curriculum models, I would state that I have the least experience with the Flipped Classroom simply because I taught an elementary music course that met once a week. Students did not have devices. However, as a technology integration specialist, I assisted a teacher in the process of creating the model in her classroom.

I love using Project Based Learning!!!

The model that I would need more guidance in using would be the inquiry learning.