Week 5 - Final Blog for Tech Ed

This is my last blog for Technology in Education which has been an eye opening experience.  I am overwhelmed by the use of Google Classroom, Formative Assessments and the various available applications.  Right now, many of my experiences are limited to this classroom experience.  I have no frame of reference on how any of these tools are used in practice.  When I ask my sons about their interactions with technology, I get the short, vague answer.  I did get to see Kahoot used with my 6th grade son when I shadowed him during the middle school's partner day.  It was used in his advanced math class where we worked various math problems related to their current unit.  That was fun because it was interactive and competitive amongst the students.  My son especially loved it until his chromebook "died" on him and shut down.  He was so upset because he was doing so well.  The teacher used the total responses to see the answer distribution and ask why or have a student demonstrate how they obtained the answer.  A student would come to the white board and explain to the class how they solved the problem.  It was nice to see an assessment app like Kahoot used in real practice.  Later that day the same app was used for gym class.  Since parents were in attendance, the various gym teachers created a Kahoot assessment regarding their current cross country unit.  Once again the parents and students could work together or individually.  I was able to download the app to my cell phone and answer the questions myself.  You had to pay attention since the questions were timed and most of the questions were True/False.  The shape associated with the answer was not always consistent either.  It forced you to pay close attention and not get overly excited to answer that True/False question assuming the Blue Diamond was always associated as True. 

I am finding the use of Google Classroom intimidating since I don't work in Google that often.  I use it as a search engine, a calendar tool for my family and email for personal use.  Since starting with Trinity, I have enjoyed using the Blogger tool and see the power in it.  If you are passionate about a topic, I see the value in a blog post as long as you can accept any feedback good or bad.  Google Classroom is something that I will need to learn and embrace.  I figure once I step out of my corporate role and into the educator role and into observation and student teaching, I will be able to see it used in everyday real practice.  Right now it is all conceptual and I find it difficult to apply in my eventual teaching role.  While it seems Google Classroom is the future, I know of other districts and schools that are using a myriad of other tools like Office 365.  I know the questions to ask teachers when observing so I know I learn something new and how to put technology to use in education.

Technology is not going away but I want to strike a good balance with it.  I want students to learn and use the tools so I can effectively teach and plan.  I also want students to learn how to interact and relate without technology.  We are surrounded by it everyday 24/7 and I think sometimes we need to step away, decompress and live life.  That is something to teach our students as well.