Eileen Hernon
Technology
My philosophy on technology integration is simple: learners first, technology last. When planning, I focus first on my students' needs and the learning objectives. My final step is mindfully choosing technology that makes the content more accessible and exciting for my students. I want my students to have ample experience working with different forms of digital technology, and I also feel a responsibility to model purposeful and critical technology consumption for them. Below are a few examples of the ways I incorporated technology during my pre-service teaching.
Interactive Whiteboard Lessons
This is a SMARTBoard lesson I wrote while enrolled in an elementary math methods course. This lesson was designed to teach basic addition and subtraction skills in a variety of different contexts, including song, concrete manipulatives, word problems, and number lines. I embedded hyperlinks, moveable animations, and other opportunities for student interaction throughout. I've found that as soon as students see they might have a chance to touch the interactive whiteboard, they immediately perk up.*
The lesson illustrates my philosophy of "learner's first, technology last," because it is rooted in learning objectives and pedagogical knowledge of how young children learn math. The interactive whiteboard is simply a tool to help organize the lesson and engage students in the different activities. When I have my own classroom, I plan to create interactive whiteboard lessons similar to this one, because they engage students while remaining focused on the learning targets.
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*Unfortunately, many of the interactive components were lost when the presentation was converted to a PDF. If you would like to see the original, interactive file, please contact me. If you would like to read the corresponding lesson plan, click here.
Interactive Whiteboard Lessons
Google Docs
To the right is a screenshot of a very brief editing conversation I had with a student via the comment feature on Google Docs during my student-teaching experience. The students and I loved using Google Docs, because I could give them feedback in real time. I was able to efficiently read their drafts and provide revision advice while the students worked. If they had questions, they simply raised their hand and I would go over to have an in-person conference. Most students, however, surprised me with their ability to independently revise based on my comments. Using Google Docs really enhanced the writing process and the resulting product, because the speed with which students could receive feedback allowed them to complete more rounds of revising and editing.
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Click on the image to see it it in more detail
Before I tried out Google Docs with my students, I was skeptical of having kids so young type instead of write by hand. I planned to solely use writer's notebooks in my classroom, because I liked that they house every step of the writing process in one place. While I still plan to use writer's notebooks in my future teaching, I would love to have my students draft in Google Docs whenever possible, because I've seen the high-quality work students can create with it.