Technological Literacy for Education for the 21st Century by Olivia Smith

Discuss an experience you had in the classroom that has fostered the development of one or more of these skills

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-09 19:06:57 UTC

At one of my field experiences in an inner city school I faced a lot of new challenges I have never seen before. One of the children at the school who was in my 3rd grade class had a very hard home life. His parents were divorced and his mother had a new boyfriend. Without going into extreme detail, this child experienced suicidal and violent thoughts. Being that I have never experienced something of this nature, it forced me to develop emotional intelligence. Dealing with these feelings as a young child should never be something they face alone. Being able to hear this child out and help him move through his feelings was something I'll never forget. It really improved the emotional intelligence I already had been building.

Can technology improve the teaching and learning of these skills?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-09 19:24:14 UTC

I think with a lot of new age technology, children can benefit from learning things online. Specifically with something like TikTok. TikTok can be used for good inside and outside of the classroom. Apps like this can help children to explore/ find their own creativity, originiality, and initiative. With a lot more mental health resources through technology I most certainly think this builds a child's emotional intelligence. Learning how to manage all of the new challenges thrown at this new generation, I feel that these technology resources can improve the learning of these skills.

Are any skills more important than others?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-09 19:58:07 UTC

I think after taking a look at all of the skills shown here they are all important. However I feel as though you can categorize which ones are more important. If I were to pick my top 2 important skills I would select Critical thinking and analysis and reasoning, problem-solving and ideation. I think having the combination of both of these skills creates a well-rounded individual. Having the ability to think critically and reason with other people will in turn help boost your problem-solving skills. The two skills go hand and hand with one another.

How do students use video to gather information?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-11 14:04:21 UTC

In chapter 1, the author mentions the usage of the internet in terms of gathering information. Students can use videos from YouTube to further answer questions that they have for a class lesson. For instance, if you are teaching a lesson about habitats, you use provide video resources for students to look at in which they can dive deeper into research about that topic on their own.

What practices of making did I use: Tinker, inquire, seek & share resources, develop fluency, hack & repurpose, express intention, simplify to complexify?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-14 18:04:54 UTC

When creating our maker activity I believe we used tinker, hack & repurpose and simplify to complefixy. It went without saying during our class period that everyone used tinker when it came to their maker activity but I felt as though we did so much of it we had burn marks from the glue gun to prove it! We used popsicle sticks and cotton balls to make our device yet we hacked and repurposed both of those items to achieve our goal. Also, using these products we used simplify and complexify to heighten our invention.

How did participating in this activity make me feel as a learner?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-14 18:13:32 UTC

When completing this activity, it made me feel like a true student all over again. We talked briefly in class about having the time limit to complete our task. At first, this seemed like a disadvantage but it really helped us to work together in a way that we could accomodate to the time being placed upon as. One of the things I struggle with as an adult is overthinking and wanting everything to be perfect. Activities like this really help me to re-center and remember that my students may feel that same way but they must manage this feeling in order to let themselves go to achieve success.

What types of content are shared with students?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-28 01:22:42 UTC

There are a multitude of different content areas that are shared with students. One of the ones we discussed was file sharing in classrooms. With the amount of different technological resources, we can teach our students how to use different websites and software. However, this is more difficult with younger children, with the grades 3rd or 4th. Learning how to use Microsoft and PowerPoint at the end of elementary school was something I found so interesting and helpful now that I am a lot older. Students can also look at graphics to learn things like temporal words (first, then, next, and finally). Learning to use graphics at an older age can also help you with using things like Microsoft or PowerPoint.

What goals can generative AI help you to support?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-28 01:23:45 UTC

AI has a lot of emerging components that can help students learn more about the world around them. As a teacher, I have used ChatGPT to help me generate different ideas for a lesson plan. Sometimes it can be hard to think of 100% new creative ideas and AI resources can be helpful to make that easier for you. Similar to finding activities for a lesson plan, there is always the component of differentiation that needs to be included. Using AI can help break down those ideas that will be understood better by those who need it. AI can also provide you with higher-level thinking questions for the children who need that extra push.

How have you refined prompts to make sure you receive the desired result?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-09-28 01:24:18 UTC

I have learned that being more specific is the best way to get the results that you want from AI. When using AI to help with anything I have found that I must lay out exactly what I am looking for. To avoid trouble with a few answers, putting in your search bar that you would like more than one answer always helps. When I have used ChatGPT it will automatically give you more than one answer and stop around 6 or 7. You can ask for even more but I find that within the 6-7 answers they give me more than one of them is good for me.

How can you tell if a piece of content is authentic and high-quality?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-10-15 15:03:27 UTC

As the development of AI has skyrocketed, the sources we find for our students must be accurate and true. Having students look at more than one source will help to ensure that the material they are reading is accurate. Showing your students that you as the teacher have to complete research to check a source you find can also help the students to see the importance of fact-checking. An example given in the text was helpful in terms of connecting fact-checking to ELA principles. "As an educator, you might decide to connect conversations on media literacy to ELA skills like close reading" I think having the students look at something like this will help them to accurately find resources.

How do you currently talk about content attribution with colleagues and students?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-10-15 15:04:02 UTC

When dealing with content attribution with colleagues and students I think we have in some way turned away from AI. Only in recent months have I started leaning into the use of AI because I was so scared of its capabilities. A majority of my peers in college had used AI or ChatGPT before and shared how helpful it was for them to kickstart a lesson they were completing or an essay they were writing. I have yet to run into students using AI in the classroom considering I have worked with 4th grade at the highest and that was in 2022 when AI wasn't extremely popular yet. In the future, I would help students see that AI is a "tool" they can use if they feel as though they have exhausted all of the other resources out there. With younger students, I just fear that they will take in information that is more harmful to them than helpful.

What role does empathy play in students' use of digital resources?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-10-22 00:17:52 UTC

I believe that empathy plays an important role in the development of children's empathy. I know personally, growing up with technology, I found a way to connect with a lot of things I enjoyed as a child. I will never forget using our home computer to play Barbie dress-up games and just bonding alone with my sisters while playing these games. When we were younger, it was a lot safer to make friends online because there was such a small pond of people online. I do remember playing Webkinz and making friends on there. As for a teaching setting, I think using technology resources can be as easy as using something like Padlet, which is an open forum for students to share the things they find interesting within the lesson.

What do synchronous and asynchronous collaboration look like in action?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-10-22 00:19:44 UTC

In a synchronous classroom, the students work together to complete assignments that may be online. In middle school, I remember starting to utilize Google software to complete assignments in groups. We would do group presentations through Google Slides and create a brainstorming sheet on Google Docs. In an asynchronous classroom, it may be a little more difficult to accommodate all of the students. This type of learning feels most familiar during Covid. There were resources on our Google Classroom and we would have a due date by which we had to complete the assignment. It was easier as a student in high school to complete this but I can see an extreme struggle with attempting to do both kinds of learning with the younger age group.

What types of collaboration do students currently participate in?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-10-22 00:20:13 UTC

Students participate in many different kinds of collaboration. One way students may collaborate is through a maker space activity, as we have completed in our college courses. Creating something like a maker activity allows students to work together amongst one another to create something more. Another way to collaborate is through remote, role-based, and shared screens. Remote collaboration is done on a single device by one child, and role-based collaboration is working on one device but for a group project. Shared screen collaboration mixes the two above for students working in pairs using one device. In the next post, I spoke more about asynchronous and synchronous collaboration. With the variety of collaborations, it allows for students to provide one another with valuable feedback from the digital resources.

What types of products can students make to share their learning?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:31:25 UTC

There are a multitude of ways students can share their learning. Graphic Organizers. Graphic organizers are a fantastic way to "track" the progress you make as you complete your work. This can then allow students to easily share their work with peers. Exemplars are another way for students to display their work. An exemplar is essentially a student project that shows the direction in which a student is processing their thinking. Having your students create a model out of this will also fill the students with ideas or questions that can promote higher thinking level items. Checklists and rubrics are also a huge help in keeping students on track with the work they complete. Having something of this nature to look at as they complete an assignment can help to achieve curriculum goals.

How can you differentiate student learning products?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:31:54 UTC

One of the ways you can differentiate student learning products is by allowing choice to be a part of the classroom. Students learn to differentiate on their own and pick something that may interest them. Allowing your students to work creatively will also add value to the work they are producing in the classroom.

What roles does formative assessment currently play in your school or classroom?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:32:39 UTC

In the current field placement I am on, I have only seen a handful of formative assessments in comparison to summative assessments. I think that formative assessments are extremely useful in the classroom due to their flexibility. However, one of the formative assessments I have seen in the classroom is asking, on surprise occasions, for a counting test. The students have to be able to count to 100 in Kindergarten. Doing this without much preparation helps the assessment to be formative as they are practicing how to count with their calendar every morning.

How can you "give eyes to an exit slip" this school year?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:33:09 UTC

One way to "gives eyes to an exit slip" is to use technology to end your class period. I have had a few instances in my younger education where we used clickers to end a lesson. We would answer a multiple choice question with this clicker, and they would get sent to our teacher via the Promethean Board. Checking for understanding using technology, I think, can keep the students engaged even after the lesson. We have used software like Flip in our college classrooms, and I think it is great for young children, too. They could do this in groups, or they could make individual video responses. This adds more meaning to the exit ticket because it is more interactive.

What could "everyday sharing" look like in your classroom or school?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:33:51 UTC

Everyday sharing is something I want to ensure is implemented in any activity that we do as a class. I have seen this in field experiences where the children share almost everything they use. Something as small as sharing markers with one another or sharing a toy with a few friends is an example of everyday sharing. Having these sharing skills at a young age sets you up for success when you get much older. Being able to communicate with other people about things you want/dislike will lead to healthy relationships that trickle into your schoolwork. Allowing your students to comment on each other's work as well cam help students to think differently than they might've before.

In what ways can or do students participate in live videoconferences or prerecorded videos?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:34:56 UTC

Being that we are finally outliving the COVID era of Zoom, we have now seen how we can implement this resource with the current technology standards. Zoom or Google Meets can be a way for students to communicate with each other outside of school for a group project. The amount of resources on Zoom is numerous and can help students to chat and track work. Pre-recorded videos may also be used in class to help aid discussions. You can even potentially use prerecorded videos to guide you through centers. At a center, you could have a recorded part of the lesson they must listen to. Having students participate in these kinds of assignments will further their technology skills.

Why is important to start with the end in mind?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:35:56 UTC

It is so crucial to start a lesson with the end in mind because the students will be able to see the full picture and connect the dots at the end of the lesson when it is all said and done. Introducing a later topic that will do with the lesson will help the students also find meaning in the content.

In what ways can you ensure that student work feels authentic and relevant to students?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:36:32 UTC

One way that you can make work relevant to students is to engage them in work that interests them. A simple way to do something like this is to gather what your students are interested in and make that into a content-directed lesson. For instance, if you love Harry Potter, make a Harry Potter question on a math test. In more relevant terms, creating assignments that are rooted in familiar social media. You can create an assignment where the students must make a TikTok for their interactive part of a lesson. Simple things like this will keep your students involved in new concepts that may interest them.

How can you incorporate independent study opportunities into your work with students?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:37:53 UTC

One way to include independent study opportunities in your work for the classroom can also be a choice. The point of an independent study is to work on something that is of interest to you that isn't offered school-wide. For instance, some classes could be offered just as independent study because they require higher-level thinking abilities. In an elementary classroom, you could also use an independent study as a chance for your students to learn their own independence skills.

What actions do you or can you take to help students build independence in digital spaces?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:38:32 UTC

One of the actions that was mentioned in the text was the "Ask three before me" phrase. It looks at ensuring that your students (no matter the age group) think on their own before they try and come to their teacher to ask them the question. Something else mentioned in the text was the use of Socratic seminars and their ability to prompt student-led discussions. Having your students come up with their questions while leaning on one another is an important way to build independence. In terms of digital space, you can potentially hold a Socratic seminar virtually and use chat features to start discussions. Building independence virtually can also help your student figure out different ways to find resources on their own.

What is your EdTech vision and mission?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:39:39 UTC

My EdTech vision would be to curate an environment using technology in the best way possible for all of my students. As technology emerges and becomes more prevalent in our society, it is important to educate our students in the best way for them. I want technology to be used in the classroom but I don't want it to be something we heavily rely on. Some students don't have the same access to technology as other and I want to ensure that group of students doesn't feel like they are falling behind because of something they cannot control.

How will you decide what belongs in your EdTech tool belt?

oliviasmith3304 — 2024-11-19 00:40:07 UTC

To help determine what will be in my EdTech tool belt, I want to implement resources that I had when I was in school. These resources might not exist much longer when I become a teacher, but they stick in my mind because they helped. Having a Google Classroom with all of our work and resources helped us students to stay organized. Using the software Sumdog to do math problems helped me to find a fun way to learn challenging math concepts. Learning how to create things through Google Docs, Slides, Sheets, etc., helped me to learn how to collaborate with my peers and make presentations. Having all of these resources in my tool belt as a student will only prove to be more useful as a future teacher.