Teaching with Technology #1

EDLD 5364 Teaching with Technology Week One After finishing week one’s readings, lecture slides, and videos, I can already tell this class will be teaching me about various ways I can authentically integrate technology in my lessons. The overall theme for me was learning about constructivism and connectivism, I incorporate a little of both theories as a teacher. “George Siemens speaks of how a learner has the ability to create connections between various sources of information.” (Week one slides--3) It is how you connect your learning internally and externally. I do believe that is our experiences that enable us to connect prior learning to new learning. I could also to relate to Vygotski when he stated that, “the concept that as a learner gains new information from instruction, through reading, hearing, or collaborating about the new information, the learner adds to his or her personal baseline knowledge and creates new knowledge.” (Week one slides—3) Students come to the classroom with an array of prior knowledge and experiences; this develops learning for students. When students come into the classroom without many real world experiences, this can hinder their learning because they don’t have the prior knowledge to pull from. “Every learner has experiences that influence his or her understanding of the world.” (SEDL, 1999) Over the past thirteen years I have taught in two areas of town, which are completely opposites, for the most part: one is very low socio-economic and the other school is middle class. The biggest eye opener for me has been what a big role life experiences play in our educational world. My students from the poorer side of town no matter what they do, will never have the life experience many of the students from the middle class. This is where we as teachers have to as best we can level out the playing field and bring those experiences to our students. We can begin by doing hands on activities and bringing the outside world in to the class through technology. The internet, smart boards, videos, and other multimedia, can provide our students with valuable experiences. References: Lamar University, lecture slides week one, slide one Lamar University, lecture slides week one, slide two Southwest Educational Development Laboratory, (1999). Learning as a Potential event: A Brief Introduction to Constructivism. Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/pubs/tec26/intro2c.html