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Technology for the 21st Century Educator - Kutztown University - Dr. Sims


Tons of great resources here (especially with Diigo) that I plan on implementing in my classroom next school year. In addition, there are several key concepts discussed below on this page.

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 * Key course concepts are located here on the home page.
 * Project 1 (Diigo Bookmarks) is located on the Diigo page.
 * Projects 2-4 are listed on the StudentProjects page.

Some ethical and social issues involved in the use of technology:
Ethical and social issues play a large part in technology instruction in my class. I cover my school district's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) in all of my classes at the beginning of the year to stress to the students not only what is acceptable to do on the school's computers, but also try to stress the importance of cyber safety/netiquette outside the classroom as well. My school district has a web-filtering software program that limits what students have access to while at school, but I try to stress good judgment so they stay out of bad situations at home too. We also cover cyberbullying in all three grade levels, and discuss "sexting" with the 7th and 8th grade students. Many students have photo and video capabilities in their pockets and I frequently reference the line from Spiderman that "with great power comes great responsibility." Netiquette helps the students keep proper grammar, spelling, and conduct in mind when composing e-mails, discussion posts, etc.

How will I evaluate my students' computer literacy?
Fortunately it's fairly easy for me to evaluate the computer literacy of my students. In addition to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards Aligned System (PDE SAS), and the ISTE NETS for both students and teachers, I also have the National Standards for Business Education to make sure that any classroom projects are meaningful for the students. Rubrics like the ones attached with Project 3 & Project 4 help show the students exactly what I'm looking for with different formatting options and skills so they know exactly what they need to do!

My personal philosophy of technology integration:
I've grown up with technology around me pretty much my whole life. Although I had an Atari in kindergarten instead of a PlayStation3, XBox360, or Wii like today's students, I understand how useful and how much fun technology can be both in and out of the classroom. I may not have had wireless access or a cell phone my entire life like many of today's students, but I've been both with and without them so I can definitely appreciate how useful they can be! I think we should try to use technology whenever it adds something to an assignment in school, especially when there are thousands of tools out there for free. My school offers grants to teachers if I find something with a cost attached to it, but I believe that we should fully embrace new technologies that become available in the classroom because it's certainly what most students are using when they leave school! Fortunately for me, my class lends itself well to exposing students to educational technologies that are out there!

Benefits:

 * Creative and engaging assignments for students
 * In many cases, it's less "teaching" by the teacher and more "doing" by the student!
 * Constantly changing and emerging technologies - there's always something new!
 * Easy differentiated instruction that gives all students a chance to produce quality work
 * Assistive technologies allow students with a multitude of physical/mental disabilities to join the general classroom and help promote inclusion among students of a variety of different abilities.

Barriers:

 * Occasionally prohibitive costs - even if the software is free, laptops, desktops, netbooks, and tablets can be expensive for a district to acquire.
 * Cultural and socioeconomic - not all students have access to technology when they leave the school!
 * Power outages or equipment failures (both have happened in my class the past few years)
 * Students need to learn responsible usage to keep themselves out of trouble!

The technologies I am most comfortable using in the classroom:
My class is predominantly geared towards giving the students the tools they need to be successful and create quality work in their core classes and future endeavors. The following technologies/tools are stressed heavily in the designed course curriculum:

6th Grade - Study Island, EduTyping, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, BrainPop 7th Grade - Study Island, MicroType4, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel 8th Grade - Study Island, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Publisher, Moodle, Career Cruising,

As far as other technologies go, I utilize a wireless mouse and keyboard (I don't have an interactive white board), and the overhead projector every day hooked up to my laptop and an overhead speaker. I'm similar to my students in that I'm almost always willing to try new technologies/tools that can be useful. I've never had a Mac (not as common in the "business world") nor do I have an iPhone so I'm not very up to date on the Apple technologies that many of my students utilize every day. I feel comfortable enough with Google Apps that I'd like to further implement Google Drive into my course curriculum, and can definitely see myself continuing to utilize Diigo for new ideas. Fortunately I've grown up on the outskirts of the "Digital Age" so I can usually get comfortable fairly quickly with any technology I'd need at the middle school level!


 * Feel free to leave comments below or use any projects posted!!!**