Kate Wampler's Chapter 11 Reflections

3 Learnings from the Reading

1. It is important as a teacher to scaffold lessons for students so they are able to successfully learn and construct understandings of targeted concepts. If lessons are not scaffolded students will not learn how to use technology effectively and will not be comfortable with using it to problem solve, communicate, research, discovery and explore. Teachers must scaffold technology lessons for their students so they learn to use technology as a tool for learning.
2. When integrating technology in the classroom, it is important to use technology as a learning tool for different purposes such as communication, research, problem solving and decision making and not just for random use. Although I integrate technology weekly in my lessons with my kindergartners it is often used for one reason, to explore; I hope to show my students that technology is much more than a tool used to explore and have fun, it is a tool that can be used for many purposes.
3. For students to know how to work with a particular technology, a teacher centered, direct instruction model is best; I would not have thought this as most of the current research and teachings available, show a student-centered/directed model is the best for successful student learning. I guess it all comes down to balance in our teaching and recognizing that some skills, like learning how to work with a particular technology, require direct instruction.

2 ideas for integrating technology into the classroom

1. I graph the weather during the second and third quarters of school with my kindergartners. Each morning the weather job person looks out the window and decides if it is snowy, rainy, cloudy, sunny, party cloudy, windy, etc. They come back to the graph and fill in a square that shows the weather of the day. At the end of the month we discuss the information collected from the weather graph. I plan to take my students to the computer lab at the end of each month and graph the weather using an excel spreadsheet, having the students help me record the information using the projector screen. At the end of each quarter, we could come back and graph each month, and compare/contrast the weather by month.
2. I plan to use the software called Kidpics to teach students how to use technology as tool for a variety of purposes. I will have them communicate their hobbies and likes to me by inserting pictures that represent their hobbies and interests. I will have them use technology as a tool to research by using kidpics to research colors, sizes, shapes, etc. I will have students use technology as a tool to problem solve by navigating the software correctly.

1 concern

1. I would love to provide my students many opportunities to use technology as a tool for various purposes, but in order to vary the experiences with technology for my students I would need far more resources than my school has to offer.