For If You Care to Know About the Use of Tech in my Placement...

My placement: Northville High School.  The community at whole: the most conservative in Wayne County (by far), majority upper-middle class.  Yet, it seems that, in the attempt to remain frugal and save as much money as possible for a rainy day (or another recession), that the school as a whole does not have the technology one would expect upon arrival (or more current textbooks/other materials/smaller class sizes...but that's another story).  However, this is not necessarily something  horrible, or causing the students a disadvantage--almost every student, at least in my classes, has at least an iPhone/SmartPhone, if not also a laptop, iPad, Kindle, Chromebook, etc.  When taking into account the larger picture, Northville does have a decent amount of technology available, at the very least, for teacher use.  For example, I have yet to see a room without a SmartBoard.  There is even a SmartBoard in the library available for student use...whether these, even, are completely necessary is still up for debate in my book.  But then again, I have a feeling I'm missing some of what they can do.  Yes, they are quite nice for taking typed, easy-to-read notes in class that can later be posted on a Website for student review; however, I have yet to see them accomplish anything that cannot be done with a bit of creativity, a whiteboard or chalkboard, and a good old projector.  Thus far, I believe my favorite aspect of a classroom is the whiteboard--I'm a mover and a writer, enjoying the greater movement offered by a normal board, unbound by a keyboard.  More modern projectors can also be hooked up to computers in order to display online content on-screen, which works well for world language classrooms when trying to show aspects of the culture, clips of videos, newspaper articles, etc.  But for other SmartBoard skeptics out there, there is this little guy:

 

Yes, they can be useful, but do they really transform education?  The greatest take-away from examining technology in my placement relates to the SAMR model...is it transforming education?  Is it augmenting learning (which SmartBoards can definitely do)?  Or are some of the sources of technology just a substitution for teaching?  Like the video, once thought to be revolutionary for teacher practice, some technologies are best only for the teachers, allowing them to take a break, especially if they do nothing with the new material they are giving students to work with.  Can videos and YouTube clips be beneficial to learning, and take it in new directions not necessarily possible before?  Definitely!  But not if teachers passively show a video and expect students to passively take in the information...more of an active process is necessary.

That being said, my MT does do a swell job in using the SmartBoard as both a notetaking tool and as a way to show students newspaper articles and YouTube clips...what really surprised me about Northville was the lack of things like Google Chromebooks, laptop carts, easily accessible computer labs, and the like.  If laptops are needed in class, it would most likely need to be a BYOD day, which, apart from bringing SmartPhones, I am reluctant to do, mainly because I do not know how many of my students have laptops...I could always ask, however.  EdMoto is used as a convenient, well-organized way for students to both turn work in and receive feedback for that work...look forward to a Webinar I and some of my colleagues will be creating around the educational benefits and uses of Edmoto next week!  In addition, grades and absences are reported using MyStar, a convenient way for students (and possibly their parents as well) can keep track of how they are doing in school.  As a whole, Northville is a healthy, safe learning environment with a fair amount of technology...often, the value in technology is how one uses it, after all, not in the device itself.

What about you?  I would love to hear about the technologies offered in your schools, and how you use them in order to teach in ways that may not have been possible without technology.

Sketchnoting...why have I never thought of something like this?

First off, what kind of world languages teacher doesn't automatically want to check out a blog with the name of "Langwitches?"  Complete with a little black pointed hat in the corner.  This is only the start of Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano's creativity, an EduBlogger to whom I responded.  Throughout her blog, she includes doodles, sometimes in combination with the types of images of something your would find on Google, like this walnut.  In this specific posting, "Sketchnoting FOR Learning," she writes the following about sketchnoting (using sketches as a form of note taking/visual summaries): "it helps me process and digest a talk, wrap my mind around a large amount of information and organize my thoughts better.  I am using sketchnoting as part of my learning process."  If sketchnoting is so helpful to her, then it could be helpful to my students as well...I set out to read more and skim through the PPT slides she had prepared for a Sketchnoting conference.

Admittedly, I love almost anything to do with art...drawing, watercolors, acrylics, pen and ink, you name it.  I was prepared to really like this sketchnoting idea, and I was definitely not disappointed.  With Sketchnote, one can do something as practical as make a shopping list, to posting a blog, organizing a lecture, making a birthday card, brainstorm, or even lecture.  Throughout the slides, she demonstrates many different uses for the Application.  In many ways, it can be used to extend and challenge students in a myriad of ways not typically utilized in the classroom.  Students often doodle when they are bored...but what about learning through doodling?

If you are interested in some sweet examples: http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/11/04/sketchnoting-for-learning/  and http://langwitches.org/blog/2014/09/24/sketchnoting-and-yet-another-dimension/
Oodles of resources are also offered under the prepared slide show.  She even has a Pinterest board with a variety of ways in which to use sketches and doodles in the class to enhance learning.



In case you couldn't tell, this particular posted excited me a little bit.  Especially as a language teacher, visuals can be crucial to facilitating deeper and more meaningful understanding.  I knew this had to be one of the EduBloggers I responded to...I have yet to receive a response, but I did only post today.  In my response, I wanted to thank Silvia for sharing this awesome idea without sounding too pumped...responses to someone else's blog can only contain so many exclamation points.  I thanked her for sharing her thoughts behind sketchnoting, shared a little bit about myself so as not to sound like a complete random person floating around on the Web, and basically said why I thought the concept was so interesting/thoughts as to how I could use doodles as a way to enhance learning in my classrooms.  In the end, I asked her if she would have any suggestions for me.  She seems very experienced, extremely on top of things, and I have no idea who she is, which makes posting to random people a little intimidating to me...but hey, the worst she can do is tell me I sound stupid or just not respond (which I wouldn't really mind...I'm shy when it comes to faceless Internet people)...and I highly doubt any EduBlogger would be actually rude.