Differentiation Through Technology: The Effective Teacher
How does the effective teacher balance the demand of a standards-based curriculum catered to the individual needs of each student?
To begin, educators need to afford the time to assess their student's academic and personal needs to appropriately enhance their technological attributes and capabilities. Teachers need to ask themselves how accessible this technology is and what are its affordances? once these questions can be answered the effective teacher will balance a standard-based curriculum catered to each student by providing a technology assessment to adhere to standard technological usage and to measure their strength in different tech formats. Is there a parent at home who is tech-savvy? If they are familiar with social media web-searching, content management systems ( WordPress for bogging) then the teacher can use this to his or her advantage and exploit their skills whilst using it to bring the students to their interest. The technology also has to be adapted to the student's environment to make it accessible for all and adapt the content of the classroom to learners from various backgrounds, adaptive technology would be the teacher's best option in this situation. One could use google meet, google classrooms, shared files that provide access for all, and more.
What tools do we have at our disposal to help us comply with both demands?
Technological resources vary across academic settings. Resources like Studyblue or Quizlet allows vocabulary quizzing, video cameras on computers, tablets, and phones allow virtual study groups and virtual learning. Recorders and audio playback allows for accessible technologies to disabled students or students that would prefer to read and listen simultaneously.
Virtual realities and video simulations allow for immersive learning through virtual role-play. Change in response to specific user actions like role-playing and enactments allows students to create a collaborative learning environment.
What best-practices regarding technology in your instruction do you incorporate into your lessons?
At the moment, I am not a teacher or lecturer, however, if I was in a position to educate students it would be very similar to the teacher in the TED Talk presentation. I believe classrooms should be more student-centered where students can learn to use technologies and then teach their classmates, whether it's through spending an hour on independent pl/research/study groups etc.
I do believe technology in the classroom should be purposeful while increasing reading comprehension with pre-recorded books and a physical book to follow along. Have students learn of different cities, museums, historical sites through virtual tours.
Social media could be positively displaced if they can communicate with professionals in their respective fields and see what it's like in the life of a " Firefighter"...
Jonassen, D. (Ed.), Spector, M. (Ed.), Driscoll, M. (Ed.), Merrill, M. (Ed.), van Merrienboer, J. (Ed.), Driscoll, M. (Ed.). (2008). Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology.
Roblyer, M. & Hughes, J. (2019). Integrating educational technology into teaching, (8th ed.) New York, NY: Pearson.
Hi all! I was a bit nervous in my video discussion regarding technology in the classroom. My apologies in advance if I was not clear in my interpretation at times. Please see the link below to immersive virtual learning in the classroom using second life for education: