Connecting Tech Skills to the Classroom

I hope you found last Tuesday morning's Technology PD sessions to be beneficial and that they were relevant to your educational practices. It was probably even better if you were able to take home one of the raffle bags! If you haven't had the chance to complete the PD survey Allan sent out here's the link again. At the heart of the day was the desire to have you connect something from each session to your classroom. It might be a concept, a website, or piece of technology. Whatever it was it was important for you to have reflected and taken an actionable idea with you.

As the technology conversation dives deeper into our classrooms it is my hope that technology can create efficient practices, improve communication, and stir innovation. In addition to those direct impacts on your classroom I think it is important to talk about skills that technology, coding, or an engineering/problem-solving mindset can bring to the classroom to benefit all students in all subject areas. These skills can impact any subject and serve to build up skills that support healthy social-emotional learning environment.

Collaboration - "Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

9 types of collaborators with description and comical visual representation of what they might look like.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving - "Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve." - Roger Lewin

Venn diagram of creative thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving

Creativity and Innovation - "If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old." - Peter Drucker

Photo of a town and person hold a phone with an image of the same town with a filter applied.

photo of a wind turbine and a windmill in a country setting

Perseverance - "Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did." - Newt Gingrich

photo a person holding onto a rock while climbing with the sun in the background a rope dangling

If any of this resonates with you, the Tech Task Force will be forming soon for our first of three meetings this school year. We'll be looking at how technology can impact learning from various perspectives and the positive and negative impacts of using technology in the classroom. The hope will be to create a balance where technology enhances learning opportunities but does not expert level skills that only few possess.