I attended four sessions at MACUL, two full and interesting, two partial and less so (for my own purposes). My primary takeaway was this: using technology in the classroom is fantastic... if you have the resources.
In my opinion, one of the most promising uses of technology in the classroom is formative assessment. I love apps like Socrative and InfuseLearning to get fast snapshots of student understanding and hear from every student in the room, not just the chatterboxes. So when I saw a session for this type of app listing apps both familiar and unknown to me, choosing to go was a no brainer. Even better, the description promised to help with implementation of these strategies without a 1:1 classroom. Happily, I did learn more about particular apps - I had never heard about TodaysMeet, which is basically a chatroom a teacher can create on the spot, and I got more information about PollEverywhere and Socrative. However, when it came to implementation in a tech-deprived environment, I was more disappointed about the insight provided. The presenter said that such assessments don't have to happen simultaneously, and that you could have a couple devices in the back of the classroom for students to take turns on. The problems I can see with this approach in my context are legion; the class period is only 55 minutes, and I generally can't afford to have two or three students not paying attention at all times. Additionally, one of the huge upsides of this technology is its instant nature, and such an approach abolishes that benefit.
I actually did make my first foray into Socrative last week and had a chance to try out one solution to the problem - I brought students to a computer lab for a project, and before they began, I had them take a diagnostic quiz to take their temperature before I began test review the next day. This worked very well, and I got a lot of valuable data - but it worked because I momentarily transformed my classroom into a 1:1 environment. This is not a solution for the question of how to work such formative assessments into my classroom on a daily basis. One possibility is to have students share their smartphones; Socrative allows you to pass the device to another person to answer the same question. I have yet to try this method but I want to soon.
The other full session I attended was called "Create a Student-Centered Learning Environment," and it was very fun and engaging. The two presenters gave us a fast rundown of many interesting tools for use in the classroom, several of which I had not heard of. Fellow MACers, you can see the full list in the MACUL Google drive folder created by Eliza. I particularly enjoyed Kahoot, a tool that allows teachers to create and run a game show-like quiz. However, it once again requires a 1:1 classroom. The presenters were both from a very nice high school that seems to have fully incorporated technology into its methods. So I say once again... that's great, but how, practically, can I use it?
MACUL was a fun experience, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to hang out with some MACers I don't see nearly often enough. I also got some solid information, but it will take quite a lot of thought and strategizing to figure out how to make use of it in my own teaching.
Hey Anne!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post, because you went to different sessions than I did. The student-centered learning environment session sounds really interested, and I bet it would have been beneficial to my classroom, since we use an IBL style learning environment. I'm definitely going to check out the list of tools for the classroom and see if there are ones that I can implement in my classroom! Unfortunately, we have very little technology in our school, so I feel the same frustration that you do about the practicality of it all.
So far in my classroom, I have used technology mostly for graphing and "fun" activities, so your points about using it for formative assessments really strike me as interesting. I'm going to check out the different apps that you mentioned in your post and see how I can use them in my class. The class sizes in my placement are so big that it's hard to get responses from all students, so I think using technology for formative assessments are a great way to get input from all students instead of just the outgoing ones.
Let me know how it goes when you try passing the phones around and letting students answer the same question - I would love to see how it works for your class and potentially try it in mine!
I share your frustrations about trying to apply exciting technology into a classroom that is not 1:1. It is easy to get excited about all these new ideas, but then instantly let down when you realize you don't see how it can work in your classroom.
ReplyDeleteI now do formative assessments during my mini-lectures in my classroom using polleverywhere because all of my students have a cellphone that can text even if it is not a smartphone. Even if you do not have ALL students with a cellphone maybe you could pair students up and have pairs respond? It seems likely that they would have a phone in class(smart or otherwise) even in a non BYOD school.
One thought about passing phones around rather than having them work in pairs(which I suppose would only work if at least half have a cell phone) is that I would not want to be responsible for a lost or broken phone...
Just some thoughts!
I found your post interesting because it made me realize that I don't necessarily take advantage of the technology that's available to me in my placement, mainly because it's not right in front of me every day in my classroom. I'm feeling inspired to revisit the "tech in my placement" survey we took at the beginning of this class and start taking advantage of some available resources.
ReplyDeleteI've been meaning to try out Poll Everywhere (like Lauren mentioned) because I'm pretty confident that almost every student has a phone that has texting capabilities. Buffing up my formative assessment skills and strategies has become a focus of my teaching practice lately, and I agree with you that technology can provide some great mediums for doing so. However, I would love to have a conversation with you about tech-free formative assessment strategies that you are using since we can't always rely on the technology.
My final question is whether you've had any conversations with other teachers or administrators in your placement about the lack of resources and/or potential workarounds? If so, I'd be interested to hear about them.
Having seen some of what Anne has created in the line of tech-free formative assessment tools, Erin, you are smart to seek out that conversation with her.
ReplyDeleteAnne, maybe this comes back to what Liz Kolb spoke about when she visited our class in the fall...the power of the computers in the kids' pockets. As you suggest, the solution has to lie in thinking about making use of technology in strategic ways that speak to our specific learning goals for our students. I'm glad to know that you're wrestling so thoughtfully with these issues, Anne.