Technology Trends 2018-2019

Technology Trends in the Classroom 2018-2019

The  Whitepaper entitled Technology Trends in the Classroom: What's on Tap for 2019 and Beyond highlighted six technology trends for 2018-2019.  The technology trends that were mentioned are applications that I have experienced first hand, or heard great reviews about its use within the classroom. Educators are looking for apps that will engage students within the classroom, while allowing the student to gain academic knowledge.  The first trend is Game-based learning commonly known as gameification. It has game-like qualities that gives students access to assignment called quest, and rewards points and badges for completing assignments. The second trend is called Device Mesh. This trend allows students and educators to communicate with one another through a digital device. The device becomes the medium that connects the multiple parties together for the sake of academic achievement. The third trend is personalized learning. It is a hybrid approach to teaching students academic content  personalized learning paths and in class instruction. This approach engages the student because it focuses on the unique interest of the student while meeting academic needs. The fourth trend is computational thinking, coding, and robotics . This trend engages students on a cognitive level in which they create codes to contribute to an assignment in which they produce a game for users to play.The fifth trend is augmented and virtual reality. Augmented and virtual reality creates an instructional setting that allows the class to engage in activities on the school campus that they would not have access to due to budge and safety reasons. This trend is idea for virtual field trips. The sixth trend is Data mining which is the collection of data that is used to answer academic questions education professionals have about student academic performance within the learning environment. All technology trends address the needs of educators and students to produce engaging lessons that take student thought and understanding to higher level of thought within blooms taxonomy. Theses trends also assist teachers in asking questions regarding student data and improving the quality of instruction.

Newsela in the Classroom

Newsela in the Classroom

The site allows student to access article collections that range in reading Lexile levels to differentiate Reading passages for students. Students also take quizzes on the content within the article. Newslea has a feature that allows educators to customize assessments. Students that have exceptionalities within the classroom are able to access information as their peers do with slight modification.

Newsela Site Amenities

• Collection of information in all academic content areas such as Social Studies, History, Sports, Economics, Art, and Science.
• Text Collections
• Student binder that collects data on academic performance
• Power Words
• Customization Binder
• Accessible to all students no matter their physical disability
• Text to speech option

Newslea Use

Newslea is used in the classroom by students and teachers. The teacher creates a class in order to create and assign assignments. The teacher assigns and then invites students to assigned classrooms. The teacher assigns articles to students. The teacher creates instructions of how they would like the assignment completed. The teacher has the ability to highlight an annotate parts of the article they would like to bring to the students attention. Teachers can create and assign writing prompts for students response. Students complete the assignment through Newslea. The teacher reviews student responses to the completion of assignments.. The teacher also has access to the amount of reading time the student committed to reading the article.

My Classroom

In my Kindergarten classroom, I would use Newslea as a resource for informational text. I would read the article to the students  and conduct the close read  in whole group. I would annotate and highlight academic vocabulary . I would also use the highlight feature within the article to highlight important concepts within the print. During center rotations, I would use the text-to speech opinion and writing prompt feature that accompanies the article. If I had a one to one classroom with each students assigned a device I would assign the quiz immediately following the article reading. However, I teach Kindergarten so I would take a collection of response to device answers from the quiz.

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling is an interactive story that is told through pictures, audio, video, and web publishing to tell a story. Digital stories are available on digital devices can be as short as 2 minutes and as long as 10 minutes. Joe Lambert and Daniel Meadows are the founders of digital storytelling. The first digital stories were published in the 1900's. People are familiar with digital stories as digital essays, computer-based narratives, and interactive story telling. 

Digital Storytelling Links

1. Make beliefs comix
2. capzles
3. PicLit

Additional Storytelling Links 

Examples of Digital Storytelling

Germ Digital Story

Saigas in Distress- The Mystery of the Dead Antelope

The Boat

Digital Storytelling in a Nutshell

The following is the who, what, when, where,and how of digital storytelling. Digital Story telling is the a collection of pictures, video, text, and audio that are arranged to create an interactive story that is told through a narrative. 

Seduction of Video Game Designers

The elements that are important to players are: 

• Systems and Puzzles
• creative environment
• power
• surprise rewards
• Story line
• multi-game players

Players stay engaged with the following tools and autonomy:

• weapons or magic
• challenge that changes as the plot thickens
• constant progress
• need to control 
• tension and resolution 
• progression from one level to the next
• disproportionate feedback
• social interaction
  

As I reflect on the information presented in the article I have a new found understanding of how the inclusion of gaming elements in the learning environment can be beneficial to students.
Students will enjoy a mystery where they control what happens and the challenge changes as the complete the story line.  Social interaction will encourage student engagement as they work in groups to receive points and rewards for the completion of tasks. Students experience tension and resolution as they turn in assignment and receive feedback and grades for classroom assignments. Gaming in the classroom through class assignments encourages peer interaction and motivates students to complete work.Gaming in the classroom definitely returns the joy of learning back to the classroom.

Top Technology Trends

As I reflect on the article, Keeping Pace With edTech: The Top Educational Technology Trends. I agree with the article that the influence of technology is increasing in education. Technology has gone from being taught in isolation to becoming intergrated in all academic content areas.  This school year, Montgomery Public Schools required teachers to include technology standards within our lesson plans. The teacher evaluation tool also assess how students utilize technology within the classroom. Technology is an educational tool that assist every population that is present on the school campus. Administration collect data to determine budget, attendance, and educational data. Teachers use technology to teach, review, assess, and document student progress. Classified employees use technology to access building and document time at work. Students use technology to complete academic tasks. Parents use technology within the building to check student grades, enroll students, and complete parent surveys. Technology lends it to many more functions within the school day. There are only a few example of how technology has become apart of our daily school operations.

My opinion is that technology was created to make tasks easier to complete with minimized effort. The technology trends that stood out to me in the article were customized learning programs, cloud computing, 3D printing, augmented and virtual reality. Technology is beneficial for students educational experience not one learner learns the same way we learn differently and at a varying pace.Schools utilize technology because they are able to customize the students learning experiences. Cloud computing can assist with reducing the academic budget. MPS has done this with google classroom each student has been given an account where they can receive, complete, and turnin course work. 3D printing prepares students for careers following grade school education. Virtual and Augmented reality I must admit is my most favorite technology because it allows students to inexpensively experience activities, places, and events.

I currently use cloud computing and individualized learning programs in my classroom. If there were a technology genie, I would wish for 3D printer, classroom sets of digital devices, and applications that would allow augmented an virtual reality lessons.

What would  your three wishes be for technology in your classroom?

.

Ryver

Ryver in the Classroom

Ryver is a collaboration tool that is used within the classroom. Students participate in topic based discussion threads. Work together on group projects and assign roles for group members to complete tasks for a project. Messaging feature allows students to chat in real time as a group or individual messages. Overtime a finished product is presented to the class all coutesy of Ryver.

Ryver Features

• messages
• chat
• thread discussions
• assignable tasks
• discussion boards
• task boards
• voting
• Privacy
• avatar

How it can be used 

I would use Ryver in the classroom to introduce a discussion topics. Students will create avatars and vote on the topic that interests them. Student led discussions will occur amongst the student body in public and secret groups. Students will be separated into groups and tasks will be assigned to group members. Students will utilize messaging and tasks boards to produce a finished product.