Thank you to my sister for sharing another wonderful TED talk with me:
Every Sunday I sit down to plan for the week ahead with a bevy of challenges in front of me. I start my plans guided by the upcoming assessment and standards from the North Carolina course of study that we are studying that week, and then from there I have a few big decisions to make: what part of the novel will we cover? How will we read this week; reading groups, read-aloud, color reading, etc.? How will I incorporate lessons on grammar? How will I incorporate writing, speaking, and listening as well as reading? How will I use data to drive my instruction for individual students? How will I differentiate for all of my different levels of learners? How will I use SIOP strategies, to make the information comprehensible to my English Language Learners? And finally, How will I use technology?
On our teacher evaluations, one of the standards we are evaluated on is preparing our students for the 21st century. I think about this a lot when I consider the state of America's schools, and I think that Mr. Mitra's talk is particularly interesting. I wonder if I could group my students in front of a computer and then allow them to take ownership of their learning. Although my students have access to a lot more technology then the students in this video, I do not think that this has made them any better prepared for the 21st century. My students can use google earth, wiki sites, email, etc. but whenever allowed time on a computer on their own they use it for social networking. I tried to channel this towards education through a great wiki site called www.edmodo.com, and it somewhat worked but they still are writing messages to each other on it in incomplete sentences that resemble text messages that I send when I am in a rush (and these are far from academic). I would like to find away to channel all of those challenges that I face every Sunday under the umbrella of technology so that my students are truly engaged with technology and learning at exactly the level they need to be taught at, but I wonder how to do this. Maybe I should ask for 30 Ipads for christmas...this may get the job done.
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