The use of technology 
in the classroom to engage and motivate students is hardly a new concept. The question that both teachers and policy-makers have been asking themselves almost from the moment that the first computer landed in a classroom is a simple one: “Which kinds of programs work?”
In 1998 the Milliken Family Foundation released a study that identified 7 dimensions of effective technology integration. Even though this report was released over 10 years ago, the focus and dimensions that were identified are hardly dated. In fact, 10 years of experience in the classroom and the release of standards such as those created by ISTE for both teachers and students have validated the domains of learning that lead to effective technology integration. (You can download and read the full report here in PDF format.)
Here’s a brief recap of the identified dimensions of technology integration that can be used as a guide in designing your own programs and for examining their effectiveness:
1. Learners: Are learners using the technology in ways that deepen their understanding of the content in the academic standards and, at the same time, advance their knowledge of the world around them? Does the student use contemporary technology, communication networks, and associated learning contexts to engage in relevant, real-life applications of academic concepts?
2. Learning Environments: Is the learning environment designed to achieve high academic performance by students through the alignment of standards, research-proven learning practices, and contemporary teaching methods? Does the school culture enable teachers to individually and collectively improve the learning and teaching process through the use of technology? Is there sufficient access to technology tools, data, and the means to examine and manipulate them?
3. Professional Competency: Are educators fluent with technology and do they use technology tools to impact student achievement? Do teachers provide learning contexts that require students to take on more independent roles in their own learning?
4. System Capacity: Is the education system re-engineering itself to systematically meet emerging needs of a changing global workforce and new educational objectives? Is there a system to build human capacity through training and mentoring?
5. Community Connections: Are key community and school stakeholders committed and involved in the planning, funding, implementing, and evaluating the system’s use of technology? Is their clear articulation of roles, expectations, implementation, time lines, and accountability?
6. Technology Capacity: Are there adequate technology, networks, electronic resources and support to meet the goals of the system? Is capacity evenly distributed? Do all students and teachers have equal opportunities?
7. Accountability: Is there agreement on what success with the successful use of technology looks like? Are there measures in place to track progress, report results, and change as needed?
While there may be individual points to argue in this study, there is much to be gained by asking these questions. As you examine your own priorities and the priorities of your school, how would you answer? What changes do you feel need to be made in the approach you are taking with technology integration? And where do you feel changes are needed?
I think that we’d all agree that sometimes it’s time to get back to the basics. When your students are challenged to learn a set of facts, repetition and simplicity can do the trick. Whether it is learning State Capitals, mathmatical properties, or the scientific names of insects, I have found nothing more practical than a great set of flash cards….THAT’S RIGHT… FLASH CARDS!!!
Here’s a resource www.flashcardsdb.com that you might find benficial to use to find or create just the right set for your students, AND SHARE THEM ON EDLINE!!
Simply supply your students with the link to your favorite set of flashcards, or build a page that will allow for embedded online practice right in Edline!
I hope that you’ll find some value in this tool, and agree that this simple way to provide some quick interactive practice and reinforcement for your students is something you can all do! Good Luck!
Bio Final flashcards from bluechick676 on FlashcardDB.
GIVE THEM WHAT THEY NEED!!
As you begin the 2009-2010 school year it’s good to keep the significant role that teachers play in the lives of our students in proper perspective. Here are a few words from some famous individuals with their thoughts on teachers. (Quotes courtesy of The Quote Garden):
I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. ~Lily Tomlin as “Edith Ann”
The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called “truth.” ~Dan Rather
In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day’s work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years. ~Jacques Barzun
Modern cynics and skeptics… see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing. ~John F. Kennedy
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. ~Gail Godwin
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron. ~Horace Mann
A teacher’s purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image. ~Author Unknown
What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. ~Karl Menninger
Teaching should be full of ideas instead of stuffed with facts. ~Author Unknown
One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. ~Carl Jung
The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. ~Kahlil Gibran
The task of the excellent teacher is to stimulate “apparently ordinary” people to unusual effort. The tough problem is not in identifying winners: it is in making winners out of ordinary people. ~K. Patricia Cross
When you teach your son, you teach your son’s son. ~The Talmud
The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. ~Author Unknown
Often, when I am reading a good book, I stop and thank my teacher. That is, I used to, until she got an unlisted number. ~Author Unknown
Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana
Here are a few more from Teacher Appreciation
“We think of the effective teachers we have had over the years with a sense of recognition, but those who have touched our humanity we remember with a deep sense of gratitude.”
Anonymous student
“If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn’t want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher’s job. ”
Donald D. Quinn
“None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots. ”
Thurgood Marshall
“Education…beyond all other devices of human origin, is a great equalizer of conditions of men –the balance wheel of the social machinery…It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility toward the rich; it prevents being poor.”
Horace Mann
“Public education rests precariously on the skill and virtue of the people at the bottom of the institutional pyramid.”
Tracy Kidder
“The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.”
Plato
“The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.”
Plutarch
“I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well”
Alexander the Great
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
Henry Adams
Have a GREAT school year! Your students are counting on you!
