Technology Fix by William D. Pflaum

The text titled The Technology Fix by William Pflaum provides examples of schools that are trying to incorporate technology in the classroom. Here observed many schools who did not use their resources to the maximum possible. Pflaum provided recommendations in his text for what schools could do differently. With the shift in Common Core Standards, technology is a big part of the instructional practices. I have been trying to find new ways to this in my own classroom. 

I took a few main ideas away from this text of how I can personally change my instruction with the resources I have available. One big idea is that computers and technology is a great resource to use for assessments. I find that assessment takes a lot of instructional time away in my classroom. Another big idea that I took away was that at many of schools Pflaum visited left their computers unused. I am going to try to find more ways to really utilize my computers for more than currently an hour a day. I am also going to provide more opportunities for my students who would benefit the most from using the computers. These are recommendations for myself but also for my coworkers. I plan to share some of the insights from reading this text with them.


Pflaum, W.  (2004).  The Technology Fix.  Alexandria, VA:  Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

I recently explored some of the top blogs for education according to www.eiaonline.com. One of the blogs that I visited was Curriculum Matters on Education Week. This blog provides information about current issues facing curriculum. There are a few post about Common Core standards and instructional practice. This blog is helpful for educators because they can find more information about current issues that are relevant to them. I would encourage educators to ask themselves what their curriculum is lacking and find more information about how to fix it on this blog. Another blog that I visited is titled Cool Cat Teacher and I found it to be very helpful as well. The author has a daily post titled "Daily Education and Technology News for Schools"  that provides links to other blogs and journal articles (Davis). I would encourage educators to ask themselves how they can include or change technology use in their classroom and look to this blog for answers.

References

Curriculum Matters. Education Week. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/ 

Davis, V. Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Retrieved from http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/

Podcasts

After recently investigating and learning about ITunes podcasts and ITunesU I am very impressed with what they have to offer. I first began just looking through the different podcasts but I realized that I spent a lot of time searching. One great thing about ITunes is that they have a search bar. I am going to write a paper about inclusion for another class so I decided to search for inclusion.  I found many podcasts that had great clips about inclusion.The podcast I chose to listen to was by Tara Stevens titled "Inclusion".  The author is a professor at Texas Tech University. Another podcast that I listened to was titled "Tippin Mother's Day" by Instructional Technology. This podcasts has storytelling podcasts done by elementary school students. I wanted to know different ways that you could incorporate podcasts in the classroom. In this podcast, students retell a story and are recorded on a podcast (Instructional Technology, 2011). This was my first experience with podcasts and I see how they could be very useful. I was able to listen to lectures about inclusion in the comfort of my own home. I also think that it is very useful because you can subscribe and have access to the podcast without Internet access. I could definitely incorporate the use of podcasts in my classroom.

References

Stevens, T. (2006, July 27). Texas Tech University College Of Education. Podcast retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/inclusion/id129950726?i=96632169 

Instructional Technology (2011, August 2). El Paso ISD. Podcast retrieved fromhttps://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/grade-2-tippin-mothers-day/id360543177?i=81851581

Current K-12 teachers face many new challenges and opportunities with incorporating technology in the classroom. There are many resources available for students and teachers such as virtual environments. One virtual environment that provides educational resources for children is Secret Builders. Secret Builders ties in academic learning for students because they are able to visit with historical and literary figures (Secret Builders, 2009). It is very interactive for young students becuase rather than only reading about historical figures they are able to "interact" with them. Although there are many only resources for students, teachers and administrators need to protect students from innappropriate websites on the internet. Fortunately, The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), which was adopted in 2000 prevents both children under 17 and adults in from accessing “certain objectionable visual materials on the Internet” (Conn, 2002). Technology changes all of the time and there are more and more resources available to teachers. Educators should continue to investigate new ways to incorporate technology into the classroom.

References

Conn, K. (2002). Internet and Law: What Educators Need to Know. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Alexandria, VA.
Secret Builders (2009). Retrieved from http://secretbuilders.com/teachers_learn.html