So Chapter 10 is titled "promoting success for all students through technology," and before reading a word of this chapter the first thing I can think of is that I'm sick of seeing everyone get trophies for simply for participating. But, this isn't sports, this is education, and so every students success is as important as ours is as teachers.
One thing in chapter 10 that stuck out to me was the technology for teaching diverse students. As a prospective ESL teacher, I know the importance that technology has on ELLs and their development of not only the english language but of their content knowledge as well. Whats great about technology today is that it often offers an array of translations so for those students who's english isn't as developed as others they can still grasp the concepts of the content. Having been in an ESL classroom observing all semester I have also noticed that when technology is involved in the lesson the level of participation among the ELL's goes up.
Chapter 11's standout for me was how learning portfolios promote student involvement in assessment. For me, portfolios were always an end of the year project for an English class. Yaknow, it had a piece of poetry you were proud of, a short story that was required, and 5 other miscellaneous pieces of writing. What was great about them though was you could decorate it ANY way you wanted. Print it on patterned paper, use scrapbooking stickers, the plastic sleeves to protect the paper, it was a piece of work at the end of the year that you were supposed to be proud of. I think whats great about portfolios is it leaves so much room for diversity among the students. No two portfolios are going to be the same, and at the end of the day, we as teachers can hold our students accountable for their grades. You didn't do your portfolio, or there is little to no effort, then your grade is a direct reflection of that. Assessments like portfolios allow students basically to tell us the grade they want and deserve.
Technology allows a teacher to reach the students in multiple ways and it helps you reach all types of learners. I know in my classroom, I have been trying to use the Smartboard to teach math and content. In math some of the examples they use may not be something that all students are familiar with. For example, one of the problem of the days talked about birdbaths and how many birds were there in all. If not all of my students live in apartment buildings, they most likely have no clue what a birdbath is, so in my lesson I included pictures and examples to show my students. I think it makes a world of difference with the students.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that you pointed out the technology for teaching diverse students. You are so right. There are a lot of awesome translators out there that can make the process of learning a new language a lot easier than it has been in the past. I definitely plan on using some of them in my own ELL class soon.
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