Teaching in the Digital Age

As a student of the 20th century, I was taught in a system that was driven by multiple choice testing. Today’s Digital Age educators must provide learning opportunities that will prepare students for the world they are a part of. Technology has the potential to change the way we teach, however it could also be used to extend 20th century pedagogical practices. Teachers have to be purposeful in changing their teaching practices. Incorporating Project Based Learning (PBL), with all levels of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy, the skills represented in the P21 model, and teaching above the line of the SAMR model are examples of these practices. Then, technology can not only be use to give/assess knowledge, but it can effectively provide different means to present information that is more engaging, add a seemingly endless supply of information for students to research, as well as multiple means for collaboration, critical thinking, creation, and communication for both teachers and students.

SAMR

This video explaining the SAMR model has a great example of using technology to transform a task into something that was previously inconceivable. 

Polar Presentations

My class is just finishing up their research projects. Our topic is Polar Regions. Each student is writing an informative piece and creating a presentation to go along with it. We learned how add sound to a Haiku Deck presentation by app smashing using Haiku Deck, Explain Everything, and the camera roll. We are encountering many stumbling blocks, but we are persevering. Here is the first completed project: