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The first statistic that I found was #3. This data said that 64% of teachers use videos to support learning goals. As I was going through my undergrad and practicing writing lesson plans, technology was always used to grab attention and keep students engaged. It is shocking to me to see that just over half of the teachers in the United States are implementing videos and other technology to better round out their lesson. I use videos on a daily basis, usually more than one time a day. It helps students hear the information from a different perspective. Part of me wonders if that low percentage has to do with funding of lower income districts, but our district is very low income and we still have the resources to access videos for our class.
The second statistic that I found pretty interesting was #4 in regards to gaming in the classroom. This type of technology strategy was one that I never thought was actually beneficial in the classroom. However, 2 years ago I went to a conference and learned about several different types of gaming programs that have educational roots. There is a website called Prodigy that has helped my students tremendously in Math. It is completely aligned to Common Core standards and allows teachers to assign different standards or assignments to students in the class. It tracks all of their progress within the website. Students have no idea that this is a math strategy game. It is based in a "world" where they have to battle each other for points and crystals to buy toys within the game. Every time they battle they have to answer a question before they can make a mood. It is a very similar setup to PARCC online tools and helps the students manipulate materials online instead of on paper.
I also use gaming in my classes. I find that it is a great way for student to apply their knowledge, yet it doesn't feel like an assignment to them. There are so many great resources for teachers to explore when it comes to gaming in the classroom. I have never heard of Prodigy, but will definitely take a look at it!
ReplyDeleteHi Stephanie.
ReplyDeleteI also use videos, quite a bit. I don't think it has anything to do with funding, though. Videos online are readily available and usually pretty quick. I sometimes use them as attention grabbers to quickly explain a topic before diving in to a more involved demo, or to set the tone before work time on a project as a reminder of what we are working on to keep kids focused. Also, as I teach technology and computer science classes, I don't always have a text book, which means I have to use other resources, and what better is there than the internet? :)
The problem in my district is, we are a Google Education school, but only teachers have access to YouTube. I cannot share videos through Google Classroom because they would be blocked on student devices. In our district we need to change the mindset of shielding children from the "internet monster" and teach how to be mindful when surfing - there can also be some protection from the district firewall without blocking completely.
On the flip side, though, my previous district did not block YouTube at all, and in that 1:1 middle school environment, we teachers used to joke that the Chromebooks were really just portable YouTube players, because all the kids did with them during downtime was watch videos and use playlists as a music feed. It goes to show that there are 2 extremes, but with monitoring and digital citizenship guidance there might be a happy medium, for the student-side, that is.
I echo Scott's thoughts, especially about YouTube being blocked for students in many districts (including mine, Chicago Public Schools).
ReplyDeleteGaming in education is huge right now! What I love about this is how so many teachers are willing to share their ideas/templates/experiences with each other all in the name of student learning. Beyond a gaming website do you see yourself creating something directly related to your student learning goals?
This is an interesting discussion. The extremes that Scott mentions are very real. We've had issues with proxies at my school, and this throws a wrench in the tech department's plans with the firewall.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, while there is arguably no adult in the school who loves a good game more that I do, I find the gaming approach to be troublesome for students at times. There is a program my students use for math called IXL. It's an online platform that throws questions at students and provides explanations when they give incorrect answers. However, I've seen several students rapidly click past the explanation to move on to the next question (this happens in homeroom, not sure about what happens in math class). I think that the "just click to get to the next screen" video game mentality is quite detrimental to the learning process here.
I'm not saying this as an old timer who's out of touch. I've seen this type of behavior in my own family with my younger cousins. They love to play video games, but they hardly bother to read the text that is presented to them. They're happier to skip and skip so that they can get back to the action.
Part of this stems from biology; the middle school brain is simply impulsive. Our "instant gratification" culture does not help this. I've mentioned this elsewhere: I think we need to add digital citizenship to the curriculum. It's an essential part of life today.