Does Technology Enhance Student Learning?

Without a doubt I think the amount of technological resources we have to choose from is a positive in the classroom. It's better to have too much than none at all. In regards to this helping my students writing I have mixed feelings. For starters my students are highly motivated to use their Chromebooks for their writing. I have also found that from an editing standpoint I am able to help more students more often. The ability to do frequent checks on my students work using google docs does help the work they are producing. One drawback I have found that research reports have left some of my students just copy and pasting random facts from websites. This obviously requires some intervention with the teacher to help the students understand the best way to use and understand facts and sources from the internet and providing some of their own context on it.

At our school we are constantly looking at a plethora of data that helps us pinpoint specific areas our students need help in. Its from this data where my students and I come up with academic goals for themselves. Having this data at my fingertips has been instrumental to my RTI groupings. Having students look at their own data and assist in making their academic goals is very empowering to the students. It gives them a sense of ownership in their education and they feel accomplished when they accomplish a goal they made for themselves.

While making these goals for students I am constantly trying to figure out which specific academic program we use would be best to use to give the student independent practice on their particular goal. This can sometimes be hard to manage. In my small groupings I can give students an assignment and ask for them to have it done when they meet with me next. Incorporating these goals with a academic program can sometimes be hard to keep up with. Trying to make sure all my students are working on specifically what I have asked them to independently can be challenging.

As with anything there are upsides and downsides. In regards to how students learn best, from my experience it includes the use of some form of technology.

Seesaw Blogging in Room 303

It has been a challenge in my class to get my kids more responsible with their independent reading. Trying to manage them staying on task and making them more accountable for their work can be a struggle. I have decided to have the kids in my room use SeeSaw to blog about a current novel we are reading in class.

Setting this up seemed like a daunting task. They had to realize that what they will be posting is out on the internet for all to see. I provided all of the students rubrics to follow proper blog post guidelines. We will also be collaborating  with Mr. Hall's class which hopefully, if it goes well, we can expand it to a distance learning type activity.

I have found that some students are very self aware of their writing abilities and can sometimes be embarrassed to post among their peers for fear of being made fun of for their writing ability. I am working with these specific students to build their confidence in their writing to be able to post confidently.

I'm hoping that expanding beyond paper and pencil will make my students more motivated to interact with text they are reading. I can see this being a valuable tool that would promote discussion and enhance their comprehension. Students will also, depending on the task given, some choice in their responses while also following the rubric.

It's been a slow process implementing this in the class and I hope in the coming weeks to have a much better grasp of the process.