In PE our goal is to incorporate technology into our lessons. We're going to use the student response systems for the first time at the end of quarter one. My teaching partner and I are gradually learning and meeting with professionals that can help use utilize the system. I'm excited to take this step forward.
Recently I attended more of an informational meeting about the clickers. Come to find out, Wayzata school district has a 1:1 ration of students to clickers. Some times I think we struggle to take the technology leap, or we have one foot in the water, while the other foot is securely on land. I feel that if we don't start investing more in this area, and take some risks as a whole and learn about other technology out there, we're making our students fall behind. The clicker system can be used to check for understanding, keep track of data of all students or separate sub-groups. I also think using this system is a more efficient use of teacher time when it comes to correcting assessments, because the system does it for you! :) What an awesome thing.
More to come...
Technology is definitely an area in which our district is still growing. When I came to Shakopee from Minnetonka, I remember being interested to notice which resources & systems were already in place and which were still being added. The good news is that our district continues to make great strides in the implementation of technology and that we have great resources to help us along the way. I strongly encourage anyone who is interested in exploring new and innovative ways of using technology with students to contact Doug Keddie - he has helped me out on more than one occasion!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your technology frustrations. I would agree that when the district makes a change or an addition in the area of technology that we should "do it right". WIth that being said if we are going to have clickers in the classroom then teachers/staff need training on the software and programs so that they can use them efficiently and effectively. Then on the other hand, I think that sometimes we are trying to use more technology than we can keep up with. Things are constantly being added that we have no training or understanding of. For example, we had a 20 minute inservice on using a new reading program, Lexia. It sounds great and could have a lot of positive resources for struggling readers. However, I have no idea how to use it. If I want to use it effectively I will have to teach myself how to use it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything and we only have 1 Doug Keddie! :)
ReplyDeleteDistrict should hire another Teacher/Technology Integration specialist...(me)
ReplyDeleteI have a question for you Ashley, how often are you incorporating the clicker assesment in your class?
ReplyDeleteWe will be doing the clicker assessments once a quarter at the end of the quarter. Just a short test with 2-3 questions per unit. We'll be administering them in the classrooms, that way if a teacher is using the clickers already, the student would use the same numbered clicker they always do. This will be so nice to not have to correct a paper pencil test. You can also make subgroups and track specific populations. We'll be doing this next week. Are you using them in your class?
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