Technology is exciting to some, daunting to others and just plain a fact-of-life to many -- like balancing the checkbooks or sitting in traffic. A necessary evil. In education, it is a critical and dynamic tool to deliver content, communicate with our students, support 21st century success, deepen and broaden content and engage our students where they learn. To those of you who love technology, I say tell me more about what you love and why. Send me your tips so I can share them with our educational community. To those of you who abhor technology, I say just be willing to open the door a smidge. Sit with me and let's do some one-on-one consultation to get you over the hump. Just be willing. To all of us, I say, to bring our students into the 21st century we must all develop a Growth Mindset and be willing to innovate and step out of our comfort level. Come on in, the water is fine.

TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION: WHAT’S THE STORY IN MY CLASSROOM? By Layla Block

Reprinted from Reflections of a Language Educator, November 6, 2016

Today, I had the opportunity to attend a thought-provoking professional learning session at my school led by Mark Church. Mark talked about habits of mind and important predispositions that we would like our students to develop that would serve their learning in the classroom and beyond. In addition to social dispositions such as collaboration and empathy and work dispositions like effort and persevere, Mark challenged us to think about thinking dispositions, those habits of mind that facilitate and promote effective thinking. Important questions educators should ask: what is getting learned in here? What is getting learned about learning? What is the story in my classroom?

This session has made me think about the story of my tech integration into the classroom, and has given me the freedom to reimagine learning in the digital age, dreaming about a new story of learning. In the case of language learning, it is impossible to teach everything about language over a limited period of time, but it is important to help students develop habits that will help them transfer what they learn into new contexts, and make them successful language learners and human beings. Regarding tech integration, it is impossible to teach students every information related to the new technologies, but we need to focus our instruction on teaching habits of mind, that would help students make wise decisions in their media consumption habits. As a result, they can become more self-directed in using technology for thinking and learning.

Learning requires embracing change and being open to new opportunities and challenges. It requires having a growth mindset and being self-motivated to pursue knowledge. And it requires continuously improving skills and competencies to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world.

The goal [of education] needs to shift from one of making a system that teaches children a curriculum more effectively to one of making the system more effective by inspiring lifelong learning in students, so that they are able to have full and productive lives in a rapidly shifting economy- Steve Denning, Reforming K-12 Education

As Denning states, inspiring students to be life-long learners should be the ultimate goal of education. Inspired learners are engaged, empowered and autonomous; they persevere when they face challenges and are equipped with skills that help them make wise decisions and solve problems creatively.

One good reason why I joined Coetail is that I wanted to be inspired by big ideas so that I can inspire my students. I consider myself a lifelong learner. I systematically reflect on my knowledge and instructional practice, and I continuously seek learning experiences to expand my thinking and deepen my understanding. Joining Coetail meant that I needed to learn something new, something important. Working in a 1:1 environment and integrating technology effectively requires a deep understanding of educational technology and information literacy. In order to inspire and engage my students, I need to keep up with technological changes and their implications in the classroom.

Technology integration rests on the premise that information does not solely reside with the teacher. We learn, formally and informally, from a variety of media today, from search engines, from text messages, from social interactions and from our personal networks and communities. We learn by communicating, collaborating, creating, sharing. Technology has shifted the way we learn, and this shift in learning requires a parallel shift in teaching. As I expressed in the Course 3 blog posts, teachers and students as learning partners should be equipped with digital literacy skills in order to keep pace with the digital world. New technologies provide us with amazing resources and tremendous opportunities to learn, and with these opportunities come a dire need to develop a critical mind to be able to utilize available digital tools wisely, efficiently and effectively.

So, as a 21st century educator in a 1:1 learning environment, what is my definition of technology integration?

I believe that technology integration is the meaningful and skillful use of efficient digital tools to support the continuous process of inquiry and to promote active thinking and learning. Successful tech integration happens when teachers and students access digital tools as a way to attain learning targets and reach deeper understandings. Technology integration occurs at a school when all teachers are continuously learning new technology skills, and are actively using digital tools to create exciting and challenging learning opportunities and conditions for students to thrive and succeed. Successful tech integration implies that teachers and students model ethical and responsible use of technology, show autonomy in using digital tools, and make connections between formal and informal uses of technology.

How do I integrate technology into my classroom?

My students and I use digital tools on a daily basis. The use of technology has become “second nature”- Successful Technology Integration. I use technology as a teaching aid and a learning tool. In my classes, I use presentation software, a projector, a document reader, an interactive whiteboard, cameras, e-portfolios, and Google apps. I use technology to give personal feedback to students in an interactive way. And I use technology for my flipped classroom approach to maximize learning. Students access authentic material in French. They watch instructional videos, grammar tutorials, movies, and documentaries, and they read articles, blogs and other online material outside of the classroom. Classroom time is devoted to interaction, deeper understanding, and increased oral and written language practice.

From a learning standpoint, access to reliable digital tools facilitates the shift from a traditional approach to language learning, based primarily on grammar textbooks, to authentic learning, focused on effective communication in real-life contexts. In my French classes, my students and I use digital tools for the following:

• Researching

• Explaining/Understanding (visuals)

• Accessing authentic material in French

• Accessing updated content in French (live streaming news/ radio podcasts)

• Accessing online dictionaries and conjugators

• Accessing grammar tutorials and interactive exercises

• Communicating

• Collaborating (googledocs)

• Presenting

• Creating with language

• Sharing

• Publishing

When using digital tools for thinking and learning, I try to engage students in a metacognitive exercise, where they have to consciously think and reflect about what they are learning, how they are learning it, and why they are learning it. The goal is for students to develop a critical mind and to approach media and information critically. They need to be able to creatively solve complex problems arising from new situations they encounter while navigating the digital world.

Impact of the use of new technologies on learning in my classes:

• Greater collaboration

• Increased motivation and engagement

• Increased oral and written language proficiency

• Increased confidence to present and share

• More display of creativity

• Visibility of thinking

• Autonomy and self-directed learning

Evaluating my tech integration using the SAMR framework

Jeff Utecht states that for effective tech integration, the question teachers need to ask is: is the technology creating new and different learning experiences for the students? My answer is yes. Modern technology allows my students to be motivated and engaged. Technology makes project-based and authentic learning possible. Technology promotes authentic learning, related to real-life issues. Authentic learning requires students to research, investigate, understand, make connections, create and reinforce what they learn in other disciplines. Students are engaged in performance-based tasks that mirror real-life situations and demonstrate what students can do in the real world. Easy and rapid access to multiple forms of resources and information helps my students be independent language learners. Technology promotes collaboration and sharing in my classroom.

Based on the SAMR model, I believe that I am at the Modification level, and steadily moving towards the Redefinition stage, towards truly transforming student learning. I am continuously thinking about creating and redesigning tasks for my students “that were once unimaginable”. Two ideas I would like to implement this year:

• Creating and publishing: I need to establish learning opportunities that encourage “geeked out” participation where students are involved in fun productions and use digital tools to develop sophisticated skills and share and publish their work. Engagement is greater when student work can reach a larger audience. I need to reinforce blogging in all my language classes (writing skills), and published Podcasts (speaking skills). Students are more engaged when they can produce, create and share.

• Connecting and collaborating: extending learning from the language classroom to the multicultural community. I want to identify community-engaged learning experiences for students through online service projects and virtual class exchanges. I intend to find virtual classrooms where my students can connect with French native speakers to reinforce their language skills, collaborate and develop new friendships. And I will encourage more instructionally-appropriate use of social media in class to support friendships, interest-driven activities and collaborative learning.

To use Beth Herts’s 4 levels of tech integration, I aim at moving from comfortable to seamless. To use Jeff’s words, I would like to move from “Doing Old things in New Ways” to “Doing New things in New Ways”. As I reflect on my tech integration story, I realize that learning is ongoing and change is inevitable. My story as an educator is continuously learning about effective teaching practices that can enhance 21st century learning. Tech integration is part of the learning journey. Inspired by Mark Church’s workshop today, I have a dream. My dream is that my classroom becomes a culture of thinking and developing habits of mind that would help students learn effectively in our fast-paced, globally connected world.

What is the story in your classroom?

REFLECTIONS OF A LANGUAGE EDUCATOR By Layla Block

https://laylablock.coetail.com/2016/11/06/technology-integration-whats-the-story-in-my-classroom/