Tackling Technology
Being an educator these days means being proficient in many different skill sets. In my new role as a teacher-librarian, I have been fortunate enough to have a great mentor to help me with the day-to-day responsibilities of the library. However, technology has always been an area that I am the least confident about. The idea of others looking to me for guidance and advice is a bit daunting. A small step that I have decided to take is to follow some tech blogs. I chose to select blogs that are specific to teaching so that the tech will have been already peer-reviewed and presented as an example of best practice. I learn best from others, demonstrating and explaining the steps using simple language and video. If you are like me and are just beginning to explore EDtech, I hope that you will find the following blogs great starting points:
1- https://brittanywashburn.com/blog/
Brittany is an educator who is passionate about teaching others about technology. Brittany details her own journey with technology from the beginning of her career to the present and the things she has learned along the way. She has an extensive list of how-to videos on new technology, lesson planning, subject and holiday-specific posts and internet safety tips, to name a few. This blog is very down-to-earth and easy to follow.
2-https://freetech4teach.teachermade.com/2023/
TeacherMade was a site I used during online learning because it can create interactive assignments and assessments, convert existing PDFs into online interactive activities, and provide effective student feedback and auto-score assignments. However, they also maintain an extensive blog to inform and teach about technology. Their blog focuses on digital classrooms and freetech4teachers. Both streams are filled with articles and links to explore.
This blog site by Lisa Nielsen (The Innovative Educator) has a recent focus on AI developments and uses for teachers. As a child, she found school boring and wrote her blog to try to change that for others. In older posts, she has much information focused on social media in the classroom.
No matter where we begin on a new journey, the important part is to start. Maybe that will mean focusing on one blog for the moment and adding others as you feel more confident, and that is ok. It’s important to continue to move forward in some way, even though we may become frustrated. Find different ways to incorporate technology that you find valuable into your teaching to benefit your students and your own professional development.
References
Nielsen, L. (2008). Lisa Nielsen: The innovative educator. Lisa Nielsen: The Innovative Educator. https://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/
Teachermade. Free Technology For Teachers. (2023, December 10). https://freetech4teach.teachermade.com/2023/
Technology Teaching Resources. BrittanyWashburn.com. (2023, June 16). https://brittanywashburn.com/blog/
Thank you for sharing these blogs. They are all new to me! It is so valuable to have resources at our fingertips that we can turn to for inspiration and guidance. I also appreciate that you speak to the importance of mentorship within schools to help educators build and practice new skills.
ReplyDeleteHi Angela, there are some good resources here, especially if you dig deep into the trenches ;) I especially like Teachermade as it seemed to give some practical and ready made ideas to consider. A couple of the features I particularly liked. The first was the ability to have students upload, share, and provide direct feedback to one another on a live document. This is a great form of technology bound to improve students literacy (also a feature of Word and Google if students sign in and create a shared link). The second feature I liked was the ability to convert your pdf's and documents into an interactive worksheet where students can access, ask questions, and get again instant feedback. I think any tool that enables collaboration and the expansion of knowledge is bound to a motivating and powerful literacy and learning tool for students. Thanks for the ideas.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the practical nature of this post. You share some solid resources for continuing to develop your skills. You are fortunate to have a mentor. We are often the only TL in a school and that can be hard (one of the reasons to connect with others through PLNS). Some additional academic reading and research may have complemented your discussion.
ReplyDeleteHi Angela, thank you for sharing your resources here. After a quick look at teachermade, I am very excited to explore what they have to offer. The freetech4teachers angle is refreshing as I find that there are often a lot of resources for teachers that are "for sale". While I respect the effort that goes into creating these resources, I feel like it often contradicts an ideal of interschool/district/province/country community. I am aware that this is a multi-facetted issue concerning adequate pay among other things, but this philosophy gives me hope that we can foster a more holistic spirit of collaboration.
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