Integrating Tech

Reflections

The learners at my school, high school learners, are asked to keep paper portfolios. Read that again, paper portfolios. We're tasked with keeping them in crates, we have a crate for each class, and they throw them out the second we hand them to them when we're switching over to the gym from PE at the start of the 2nd semester. I don't even give paper work. I've been an advocate for digital portfolios from the beginning of my time as an educator here at my school, so I don't have any genuine critiques of blogs, my apologies.

I think learners would be beyond excited to keep blogs of their work from 9th grade to 12th, I think I would go as far to make it a mandatory thing for them. They would appreciate it so much when they graduate, and I would even go as far as say it would encourage them to try harder because they would be faced with what they have done every time a post is uploaded.

The only challenges I foresee are the normal, everyday challenges with everything in education; laziness. Some kids refuse to do any work, some kids will not give the best effort, but the incentive of using technology will help combat that. In my district, some learners don't have wifi at home, something that isn't their fault. We dealt with that during the pandemic, and I think it's entirely feasible budget wise to have hot spots, something I learned from the Future Ready Assessment.

Teacher Blog

Ms. Cassidy's blog is comprised of posts about her 6 year old 1st graders and the fun things that they do. There are only a few sentences explaining what's going on, everything else is pictures. Genius! What an amazing use of Tech, things like your iPhone camera and your laptop become Education Technology, things we use everyday.

(https://mscassidysclass.edublogs.org/)

An Interesting Post

 Releasing The Butterflies - "After watching the caterpillars grow and make their cocoons, we waited what seemed liked a very long time and finally all of the butterflies emerged. When the time came to let them go, all of the students read aloud a letter they had written to the butterflies.
Most of the butterflies were very cooperative and stayed around long enough for everyone to have at least one turn to hold them."

We did this exact same thing when I was in 4th Grade! We got our caterpillars, put food in the boxes, and watched them grow into butterflies and released them. It would be a special feeling, if I was able to relive that day. You don't appreciate things the way you do as an adult when you're a kid, these kids will always be able to.

Mr. Banks' PE Padlet

Padlet as an Educational Tool

I honestly feel like this tool could be an invaluable tool in relaying important things to learners; you could place important articles to be read, tutorials in my case in PE, the options are limitless. You can also have the learners use it as a virtual portfolio. I would've looked forward to logging on and using Padlet everyday if I was a student.

padlet.com/bankslsu/pe-padlet-70gsgcxcikixm0ji  - Link to PE Padlet

Module 1 Forum Post - Integrating Tech

Hola all! I'm Elliot Ellison-Banks, below is my Forum Post for Module 1.

As a high school PE/Health teacher, half of my school year is spent in the gym, a place where it can be a barren wasteland when it comes to the access of Tech to use in education, in instruction. This is something I'm trying to spearhead a change in, and this master's degree will play a big part in that. But the other half of my year I'm in the classroom teaching Health, and technology plays a big role in my teaching practices, we'll touch on that later.

Since I've been in this major, my eyes have been opened by things like Future Ready Assessments & Ed Tech Plans, and I have tons of data that proves that while my district has all of the capability, we are far behind when it comes to Ed Tech and the use of it in instruction. Not because of what we lack, but because of the non-foward-thinking-ness of administration.

This post wasn't meant to talk bad about the big bad admins, but they are a big barricade when it comes to the use of technology in your teaching practices. I do a lot of wonderful things with tech, and the learners really receive it well; some examples: Assessment, how we check for understanding and retainment, is one of the most important cogs in the wheel of learning. I allow the learners to show their understanding in a lot of tech friendly ways; if you want to make a YouTube video on insomnia, I'll allow it, if you want to make a powerpoint presentation as opposed to a quiz, I'll allow it. I feel like the tired, tried ways of assessing and teaching our learners doesn't do the best job of preparing them for their futures, and technology can play a big role in changing that. Students who perform poorly in other classes thrive in my class routinely, so much so that my fellow educators often email me or pop in to ask how or what I'm doing to breakthrough with this learner or that one. 

I try to run my classes as closely as I can to a college class, while of course providing the necessary scaffolds where needed. We have discussion based lessons that we use PowerPoints that I make as paths, and I can definitely improve on my time management when it comes to these. It's easy to get lost in discussions, and while I'm really good at keeping everything on subject, you look up and we spent a little too much time on said subject.

That's enough for now though, I don't want to go too far over the 150 word speed limit, I look forward to reading you guys' posts, until next week! Geaux Tigers!