Best+Examples+of+Instructional+Activities+with+Student+Engagement+through+Technology


 * Best Examples of Instructional Activities with Student Engagement through Technology**


 * Description of Assignment:** The assignment was to think of our classroom experiences as well as what we have learned through our coursework and come up with two lessons that show the best uses of technology in the classroom. They could be activities that we used, things we had heard about, or ideas that we would like to try.


 * What is Instructional Technology?**
 * I think Instructional Technology is incorporation different types of technology (computers, SMART Boards, Elmos, Google Sites, Podcasts, student made videos, and many other internet resources) into the classroom to help make curriculum stronger and teachers' lives easier. It is showing students how to use technology so they will be able to use it in the future. Technology improves everyday, and we need to keep our students up-to-date on the different advances. **


 * Process****: I started this assignment thinking about what I have done in my classroom. Both examples that I came up with were from this year. They go back to my 7 weeks of EDT 6000. It was in this class that I created a Google Site to use for pen paling back and forth with a local school. After choosing this example, I moved on to think about my digital storytelling project that my class created after doing Geography Murals. There are many other small things that my class has done with technology, even before I started these classes, but I felt they were less significant compared to the Google Site and the Digital Storytelling. Some of these examples are using Webspirations to create a Text Features concept map as a learning center, having students do research for various Science and Social Studies topics, doing a Christopher Columbus Webquest in groups of 3, having students who complete assignments early do a "Google It" book, where they search any topic they are interested in and fill in a sheet with cool facts, using the SMART Board to create interactive vocabulary games, or the SMART Response for math quizzes. Each time we used the different technology, the students learned quite a bit.

The reason I decided to choose the two lessons above was because I felt they had the greatest focus on not only the students using technology, but also learning in a more 21st Century approach. In the pen paling project, the students are learning something new every time they log-on to read their comments. They are practicing so many skills that they will be using in the future: typing, reading, conversing, spelling, real-life experiences, and writing skills. As for the Digital Storytelling, the students put so many different pieces together to compile our final project. They first created a mural according to size (approximate) - North America was the largest, then the U.S. was half of that, Pennsylvania was half of the U.S., and Newville was half of PA. The students all got in a group around our mural so we could take a picture with each part of "Where We Live." Then we loaded the pictures onto the computer and inputted them into a PowerPoint where the students each typed a fact about their part. We now have our own mini-book of "Where We Live." They learned map skills, landforms, the difference between continents, countries, states, and towns, and they worked on many of the same 21st century skills from above.

**Pen Paling **
 * Have you always wanted your class to have Pen Pals, but trying to get letters written and sent back and forth seems like too much work? Problem solved! Find out what to do by clicking on the word document below. Listen to the audio as you read!

Digital Storytelling **
 * Your students may have difficulty reading nonfiction text, except when they write it themselves! And the pictures in the story are of their classmates and them! Try creating a real-life example like this one...


 * Reflection:** When looking back at my best example of technology, I feel quite lucky and happy to have grown up using technology. The main reason is because I feel very comfortable trying all different types of technology and "playing around" until I figure it out. There are rarely times where I hit a level of frustration and have to stop what I'm doing and call someone to help. This activity made me realize that I am trying to use technology as much as possible in my classroom. What this class and program has allowed me to do is explore what else is out there, but in a more structured format. The reason I like this is because I do not feel like I have the time to look all over the web to find all of these amazing tools. Instead, I tend to stick with the things I know. Now that I have a great resources, it is so much easier to incorporate many kinds of technology in my classroom. I feel like I have a long way to go, but I am able to share some of the things that I have done in these classes, and my co-workers are getting some technology resources that they didn't have before either. As I continue with different assignments I feel more comfortable using the provided tools and think of ways to use them in the classroom. For example, as I use the Wiki for these assignments, I have decided to start one for my classroom. Instead of doing our normal Endangered Animal posters in the spring, we are going to create an Endangered Animal Wiki, where each student can put the information they collect on their own personal endangered animal page. They can even add pictures and for those students who are more advanced, they can add audio. Look at that, differentiated instruction!

(2010), //Google Sites.// Retrieved November, 2009 from Google Inc., Mt. View, CA. Website: [|www.sites.google.com].
 * References**: