Teachers and Technology in the Future

While technology in social culture has been thriving and flourishing, technology in the classroom has slowly been trickling in and updating at a slower pace. Desktop computers are on their way out, while laptops and small tablets and devices are on the rise. Textbooks are transitioning to online editions where students can access them from any computer with a login and password. Even printing off papers is becoming a thing of the past- more and more assignments are all submitted digitally, never to be seen on a sheet of paper. As schools work to catch up with popular culture, the classroom is being flipped. Many schools, the one I work at included, are moving into what is called a "1:1 Initiative." Within this initiative, every student is given a device and the classroom is "flipped" into a digital classroom. Teachers create online lessons and videos that students can watch and prepare at home, then come to school for the application with the teacher present. Group presentations are done digitally using Google Drive and other websites that allow multiple students access to one document so they can collaborate.

The key to ensuring that technology in the classroom is a positive change is making sure the technology is being used to enhance the learning, not replace traditional learning and teaching or the teacher. There still needs to be human interaction, thinking outside the box, and time without devices. Technology can open many new doors for students and education, but it's important that educators receive proper training and remember that just because it's "using technology," doesn't mean it's the best option.

Wordle/Tagul/Word Clouds in the Classroom

As an English teacher, words clouds are a great tool for both myself and my students. I can have students write poems and put them into a word cloud website and create a visually appealing poem. I can also have students create a word cloud after writing summaries or paragraphs about books, reviews, etc. It's also something I can use to create key word images for units, rules, reviews, etc. to post up around the classroom. The word clouds are visually appealing and fun, as well as very simple to use and a great way to show students you can take something ordinary and change it into a visually appealing piece.

The Internet in Mrs. Smith's 7th Grade Classroom

I am a 7th grade English teacher for a public school in Southeast Missouri. I currently teach two classes- reading and writing- and I have approximately 150 students. Last year, my district adopted the 1:1 initiative where every student has been given a device. I have a Moodle page where I base many of our classroom lessons. My district also uses Gmail and Google Drive to enhance student learning. Every student was provided with a Gmail address, and we use a program called Hapara where I can send out documents to students and access their Google Drive accounts for grading, etc. While I do have classroom sets of both our reading and writing textbooks, we intentionally chose books when we updated them two years ago that have online copies. This year has been full of changes, but I have been working to embrace technology in my classroom and doing all I can to enhance my students' learning through the use of the technology, web tools, and devices.