- What do you feel is the most useful technology (or teaching approach) you have learned this semester?
It is difficult to say that there is one "most" useful technology that I have learned this semester, simply because I have learned so much. I value what I've learned, including google reader, google sites, google calendar (I now use it), blogger, prezi, and wikis. Perhaps the most useful, however, was in my personal technology project, learning about online, self publishing. I am very excited to take that technology into the classroom! Perhaps it is because I am an English major, and I love books unabashedly, but learning how to use and publish a book on that website was particularly enthralling.
I also am really excited to use google sites in the classroom. I had no clue about that stuff, but now I can totally use it like it's nothing. It is a tool in my hand I intend to use.
- How do you plan to use this or other technologies in your future teaching?
I plan on using the self-publishing site, wordclay, in the classroom to create student anthologies. I also may have students create their own, personal anthologies of what they've written in class, especially if the class has them write a lot. I love writing, and teaching writing, so I hope that will be a part of what I do in the future.
- How can you use technologies (the ones we learned or others) to engage your students in ACTIVE learning?
Students are engaged when they feel like the work they do is valuable. Knowing that other people (besides myself, the teacher) will read what they've written makes it more important to them that what they create is quality stuff. Having a class website, blog, and using self publishing give that to students in a way that I would not be able to create on my own as their teacher.
When it comes to wikis, I was really excited by the possibilities I saw in it. Depending on the class being taught, and the students in it, I believe that wikis could make classes more interactive, valuable, and engaging for students. Personally, I am taking a teaching grammar class right now, and a particularly valuable resource is the class wiki. It is a lexicon of grammatical examples. I intend to use it in planning lesson plans like monks used feathers in writing Bibles. Wikis can be so valuable. Doing something like that, with the wiki examples, or creating a class study guide wiki for whatever class it is, could really enhance students' learning!
