Digital Story

Throughout this course, I have been been working on a research project, investigating how digital technology can be successfully integrated with digital technology in hopes to create a more engaging and authentic understanding. In order to share my findings with my fellow pre-service teachers and Mount Royal Professors, I created a Prezi!

In order to learn more about my project, please feel free to watch my Prezi! 

End of semester journal entry

My key take away from this course is how effective and useful digital technology can be if integrated properly into the classroom. There are so many different implications that it can have within the classroom and as a result can help to create more engaged and authentic learning experience. In terms of my own teaching pedagogy, through completing the emerging digital technologies this class, it has really opened my eyes in how I want to incorporate more technology in to the classroom. The realization that I have come to as a teacher in the 21^st century, it that am going to be educating students whom have been deeply submerged with digital technology and so I believe that it would be naive of me to disregard this reality and take advantage of this opportunity where I have this powerful tool that can be used to help scaffold student learning.

This course also allowed me to investigate my own questions and concerns that I had about digital technology. As I am a huge advocate for inquiry-based learning and it has become a huge part of my teaching philosophy, I wanted to further investigate how I can use digital technology in partnership with inquiry based leaning in order to provide deeper learning and understanding for my students. My research and finding both indicated that digital technology can significantly enhance student engagement in the classroom but also student achievement if implemented properly. One of my key take aways from this research is that teachers themselves need to be properly educated on how to use the specific forms of digital technology before implementing them into their classrooms for students to us. If there are unprepared then it can take away from a lesson or devalue the learning experience. Also if teachers cannot explain how to use the technology or resource then this can cause disequilibrium for the student. Another thing that that arose from my research was that inquiry based learning itself is a relatively new concept and teachers are still learning how to weave it into their own teaching philosophy and so in terms of how effective digital technology can be, it as all still a learning process in order to figure what works and what doesn’t.

In terms of my contributions to my peers learning, I helped my fellow pre-service teachers gather information about their own burning questions by completing there research surveys. I also think that I really helped my critical friend and my peer mentee’s learning and understanding in the class by providing constant feedback, support and suggestions throughout their various assignments. They also helped support my learning and foster professional relations as they provided feedback and supported me through my various projects. Everyone comes to class with a variety knowledge on different topics especially in the field of technology. Thus this class really helped me to realize that all of my peers are really great assets and have provided me with some really great support. But only have I learned lots about digital technology and practical implications throughout this course, but I have also developed some really great friendships.  

Professional Responsibilities and the uses of Digital Technology

Hey guys! Check out this week's video on Professional Responsibilities and the uses of Digital Technology! Featuring Miss. Hubbs :)

Digital technology and its effects on classroom environment

Featuring returning special guest, Miss. Taylor Hubbs!

Improving Assessment Practices Using Digital Technology

Featuring Special Guest Taylor Hubbs, fellow MRU teacher candidate!

Facilitating Learning through the use of Digital Technology!

Digital Technology and Planning for Learning

Links to both resources discussed in the video :)
Khan Academy 
Kahoot 

Ordinary to Extraordinary

Throughout my time spent in Education 2325, there are two personal goals that I hope to achieve.  My first goal is based around digital technology integration into the classroom. After this class I hope to learn ways and methods to successfully integrate technology into my classroom in order to help scaffold my teaching. Even though I have grown up as a student in the 21st century and am transitioning into the role of an educator, I find that I am very "old school" in terms of technology. Therefore I am hoping to learn about different mediums to technology that not only enhance my teaching but also help enrich student learning in order to create a more authentic understand. However I believe that although technology can greatly enhance education, it is not a substitute for good teaching. Thus I think that it is important to find a balance between instruction and the use of digital technology. 

My second goal branches off of my second goal, in which I truly believe that digital technology, can help to create a more authentic learning experience. As a teacher, I have become very interested in inquiry-based learning and more specifically in terms of science. Thus, by the end of this course I am hoping to learn what are some successful mediums of digital technology that I can bring into a classroom in order to launch inquiry projects and deeper levels of thinking among my students. I have also chosen this as my research topic for this and am excited to dig into the topic to learn more!  This is an important topic to me because I believe in learning through "doing" and I also believe in authenticity. In my personal opinion, students each have there own meaning of what learning is to them and within this meaning they each have developed an idea of what is important to them and what they want to learn. I believe that through inquiry learning both of these principles can be achieved. Inquiry allows students to not only learn curriculum objects but it applies them to real life situation thus creating authenticity.  Inquiry also allows students to branch off curricular outcomes into topics that are meaningful to each individual. 

In terms of my past educational experience with technology I have been privileged to use a variety of different mediums such as laptops, Smartboards, and Iclickers. Yet I feel that the technology was just “there” and it serve as a point of delivery for information. Where as now from a future teacher’s perspective, there is so many ways that the technology above could have been used to deliver a more rich understanding of learning.  Therefore I hope to use technology to help take my students from ordinary  to extraordinary!