Empowering Students through Technology

[Mollie Cline]

Hello! I’m Mollie Cline and I am finishing my junior year at Sterling College. I have a somewhat unusual background for a teacher, as I was homeschooled during all of grade school. I feel that my highly personalized and self-motivated education early on has given me the knowledge and skills to succeed as a lifelong teacher and learner. Technology is a subject that is especially dear to my heart. Even as a child I would ask my mom to let me use Microsoft Excel to graph my math problems instead of drawing them by hand; I was always looking for ways to learn more about technology and how to use it. My father is an electrical engineer, and through him I have always been exposed to an abundance of technology and he often worked it into our schoolwork. Having this sort of integration in my own life makes me an ideal candidate for integrating technology into the lives of other students.

I am excited by the idea of increasing children’s capabilities. Even though memorizing key facts is helpful in some ways, I am much more interested in showing children how to use the knowledge I’m giving them. In the 21st century, what better way to empower my students than by teaching them how to use and implement technology? This position seems to be a great fit with my desire to prepare students for the real world.

One of my strongest attributes as an educator is also one of my struggles: I have never attended public school. I consider this to be a wonderful strength in many ways because I was able to receive an above average education and deep thirst for learning. Additionally, I learned many skills in “alternative” methods. The homeschooling community, since we don’t have to follow a state curriculum, tends to be very open to teaching the same skills in diverse ways. This is a great asset when a student doesn’t understand how to do something; I can easily teach them a different way of doing it since I am used to approaching the same problem from several different angles. However, I consider my lack of experience with public schools a struggle as well. I may be very comfortable with the material I teach, but I am considerably less comfortable with the surroundings in which I teach it. How do I send children from one class to another, how does lunchtime work out, who helps me if I need an extra hand suddenly? I have many questions that can only be answered through experience. However, I am confident that my tendency to be a quick learner will carry me through any struggles resulting from my in-home education.

Three to five years from now, I see myself well established in a classroom where I am comfortably teaching a class of wide-eyed learners. I will achieve this goal by being a learner myself, and consistently finding ways to improve myself and my teaching techniques. I anticipate learning every day that I teach, and taking the time to reflect on that knowledge to make it into wisdom. In this way I will settle in quickly to the role of classroom teacher and enjoy my experience.

When I introduce new software applications, I believe it’s important to give children a chance to explore. I know that for myself, when I’m exposed to new technology my immediate instinct is to “play” with it until I have it figured out. The ability to experiment with new technology and figure it out instinctively is a major asset to anyone in the 21st century, and this can be learned only through practice. Being in an educational setting, I would guide my students in this process. One way I might guide them is to ask them to provide an end result (such as making a bar graph, in Microsoft Excel) and then let them figure out how to do it. Alternately, I may give them a specific area to explore (such as the graphing tool) and encourage them to try to find out what many different options do. Whatever methods I choose, I will endeavor to keep their natural curiosity alive by encouraging them to indulge in it rather than stifle it.
One of the most exciting things about technology, in my opinion, is how easy it makes it to adapt to every learning style efficiently. For example, even with a simple lecture style lesson: the lecture notes can be published on a blackboard type site for visual learners, while the lecture itself is recorded for audio learners to revisit, and typed notes can be taken by kinetic learners. There are so many creative and new ways to reach every child where they are, instead of asking them to conform to one way of teaching. I believe this is very important and technology makes the possibilities extremely exciting. The same is true for special needs: If a child has special needs, a lesson can be altered, repeated virtually, or modified to fit the needs of the individual student. To learn effectively, students must be met where they are and then allowed to expand from there. Technology reaches every student.

As mentioned before, technology had a pleasantly large impact on my education. I could make a graph on Excel before I knew that y=mx+b on paper, I could figure out all the settings on a digital camera before my mom could open up the instruction manual, and I have been able to type faster than write by hand for as long as I can remember. My mother wasn’t especially fond of the idea of using an excessive amount of technology, but my love of all things computer was enough reason for her to let me pursue technology. Of course, the technology available to children now far surpasses what was available when I was in 3rd grade. I remember the first time I heard about e-mail, or digital cameras, or Google. Students in the 3rd grade right now probably already know how to use all of those and think they have always existed. I loved the things we did have though and used them as frequently and creatively as possible.

I think the best way I could encourage faculty members to use more technology is to inspire them with my own usage. If I can do a project that is the talk of the town, or use a piece of equipment that keeps my students fighting for the chance to learn more, or be creative and effective in any way, that sends a greater message than any words I could use. Some teachers will always be resistant to change; they might see it as a fad, or be intimidated by “that computer stuff”, or just be content with their own methods. I would love to show them how amazing it can be for both students and teacher to make use of the technology that is now available.

One of my favorite tools that I learned about during Technology in the Classroom at Sterling College is digital stories. Digital stories are an excellent alternative to written reports. They can be written over a specific, academically minded topic, and graded for factual information presented in an interesting way. Alternately, they can be made over a topic of the student’s choice, and let the focus be on creating a sense of flow, interesting word choices and graphics, and communicating well. I’ve attached a digital story that I made as an example of my work and how I would use this. It was my first experience with digital storytelling, and I chose to make a brief documentary of the movie “Interstella 5555”. Essentially, I staged the story as if one of the main characters was telling her own story in retrospect, also including some background information about how the show got started and who is behind it.

For this sort of project, I would be grading students on creativity, flow, grammar, and presenting the piece in a way that is interesting overall. For older students I might have them create a story about a specific topic that we are studying in school. This adds the elements of factual information, citing sources, and accuracy. The important thing is just to let students know what the purpose is so they can do their best.

I look forward to constantly finding new ways to integrate technology into my classroom, or even teach it as the main subject. Everything relies on technology now, whether we are ready for it to or not! It’s time to be serious about preparing students for the world that is really out there, not a world that existed fifty years ago. The time is now to revitalize our education system and plunge headfirst into the 21st century.



Link to Digital Story:

http://voicethread.com/share/372997/

[Dean Mantz]

Molly, you have written an excellent blog entry for the class final. Thank for sharing your background and desires to be a public school educator in the post. I do believe that any classroom you are responsible for will be blessed as well as extremely successful. Best wishes in the future.