Exploring Technology for My Future Classroom

Ahh, technology. It is quickly becoming the staple in our society and it's almost impossible to find someone who doesn't have a smart phone and even rarer to find someone who doesn't use technology at all. Grocery stores such as City Market are installing self-checkout aisles for customers and many jobs require the use of technology. But what about in our schools? Many teachers still prefer the traditional pen and paper to using computers or other devices.

Where's the creativity? The fun? In my personal experiences and from what I've seen in my field classrooms, teachers primarily use technology for research, writing papers, or giving some other form of instruction. It is not a complete lost cause, however. Teachers young and old can integrate technology into their classrooms so that it is for the benefit of the student and the student's learning rather than for the teacher.

One place to start are with interactive websites, mobile applications and cloud based applications. Explore a little and you'll find something that appeals to you or that would be so fun for students to do! Catherine Logue's article, "50 Awesome Apps for Teachers" (ahem, and students. trust me) gives you exactly 50 awesome apps that could be used in our classrooms. IT gets better too, because she even includes recommended grade levels to make it even easier for the beginner.

So that's what I did. I read Logue's article as well as a blog from Ms. Driskell (Integrating technology in the First Grade Classroom) to help me discover technology that I could use in my first grade field study classroom this semester.

I found that the Technology that would be the most age appropriate for my field classroom would consist of technology that allows for teacher support. First graders are not as tech-savy as say a fifth grader but they are still more technology-literate than a kindergartner. I looked into applications such as creating animated videos, YouTube, virtual field trips, NearPod or Pear Deck, and App Games such as One Globe Kids, Bubble Ball, WordGirl Word Hunt.

Out of these, I would be most interested in using virtual field trips. It is interactive for the students, exciting, engaging, and can be done right in the classroom! It would be fun to build anticipation around the live field trips knowing that other students are doing the same thing we are and exploring together. The video below shows a little how virtual field trips work.

As always, we have to make sure we are still teaching to standards and content outcomes as required by our state. In Colorado, using a virtual field trip application would fit under Quality Standard 1, Element F: Teachers make instruction and content relevant to students and take actions to connect students' backgrounds and contextual knowledge with new information being taught. Virtual field trips can be taken in the local community or state to make it relevant to students. But, even if the trips are taken in the amazon rain forest, like shown above in the YouTube, it can still be made applicable to students by asking them find connections and differences between the environment of the rain forest and the mountains of Colorado. This allows them to take a closer look at their own environment they live and probably see/learn things they did not know before.

This application would also fit under Quality Standard 3, Element D: Teachers thoughtfully integrate and utilize appropriate available technology in their instruction to maximize student learning. This technology is appropriate to the first grade level because Logue and Ms. Driskell both list it as being first grade appropriate and because it does not require an in-depth knowledge of computers or smart devices. It is also an available technology because, although most classrooms won't have smart devices such as iPads, most do have computers for students to use.

I can definitely see this application as something my first graders would have a lot of fun with. They would be able to explore the community around them as well communities elsewhere in the world.

Sources:

Logue, C. (2014). 50 Fab apps for education. Instructor, 124(2), 24.

Driskell, M. (2011, November 30). Integrating Technology in the First Grade Classroom. Retrieved September 23, 2017, from Blog Spot.

#technology #mobileapps #fieldclassroom #virtualfieldtrips