Why I wanted to be a part of the pilot

As a “High Tech Classroom” teacher I would seek to enhance my teaching by using technology to maximize student learning.  Some of the ways I would like to utilize technology in my classroom is to make my warm-up question more interactive and be able to gage student data in real-time.  I hope to utilize Socractic and Word Wall applications in this endeavor. Being able to use these technologies as formative assessment tools in real time will allow me to meet the academic needs of my students during the time I have them in class.  Students would be able to post responses and questions, so I can quickly assess student understanding. 

Secondly, having more devices in my room will allow me the opportunity to complete more collaborative assignments with the use of Google docs.  This would allow the students to work on assignments in class when the need arises without me having to arrange lab time weeks in advance. 

I want to foster a sense of curiosity in my students and have a strategy I’d like to try, but not having access to technology has hindered my attempts.   I want student questions to drive a lot of the learning in my classroom.  The questions students ask at the end of a lesson or reading are better than questions they can answer about the lesson or text.  I want them to further their understanding of concepts.  I want them to develop in-depth “how” or “why” questions and research and answer their peers questions.  I want them to do this as historians would using our sourcing and corroboration skills.  Students would be able to collaborate and research using google docs and the internet. 

So many questions arise in a history class involving current events.  Be able to access the internet when a question arises will allow students to practice being historians by sourcing the information and corroborating it with other information.  The students could be “fact-checkers” and learn how to use the internet to effectively meet their needs with credible information.  Thereby making the students involved in their learning and not passively waiting for the teacher to just “give them the answer.”

Lastly, I hope to learn some applications to help me replace some of my paper/pencil assignments with a drag and drop application.  For example, I would like to be able to have students play review games where they sort vocabulary or the responsibilities of the 3 branches of government and they would get instant feedback regarding their accuracy.  They would not need to wait for me to come over to check their work.  When they had an incorrect response, the program would not accept the answer.  Feedback is one of the most powerful ways to maximize student achievement and learning, so I hope to utilize technology to provide faster feedback and growth for students.  In addition to instant feedback, the drag and drop format of the PARCC test is something students need practice with before “game day.”