C4Ta #1

The 3 Things Digital Classrooms Really Need
Summary:
Steven's blog was about teachers using the "power" of technology to their advantage in the classroom. Steven said teachers need to have engaging content, meaningful assessment, and reflections by using technology. Steven said that teachers have the opportunity to use multimedia to make their lessons more engaging. This blog said that along with using formative assessment, we can also collect data and take polls by using technology. Last Steven said that he reflects by creating blogs. He said he not only uses blogs for reflection but also in his classroom. He feels as if teachers and students alike can benefit from blogging and that using technology can create a more powerful classroom.

Comment:
I completely agreed with this blog. I think that technology needs to be taken advantage of. However, I do not think that we need to rely solely on technology. I found it interesting that he said he blogs his reflections and that he felt as if blogging made him the professional he is today. I liked his idea of "three digital things classrooms need" being engaging content, meaningful assessment, and reflection. Even though he meant for those ideas to refer to technology, I have also heard those ideas in my other classes and completely agree that it needs to be applied to classrooms.

Evaluating Technolgy? Here's What to Look For...
Summary
This blog post was about helping school leaders better understand technology. Steven said he created five questions to show the school leaders how effective technology in the classroom is. One of the five questions is who is using the technology? Are teachers solely using the technology or do the students use it as well? The second question is if you took the technology away, how different would the lesson be? Students are using Mac books to write papers, but they can also use paper and pencil. However, if a student has to create a podcast, the technology can not be taken away. Third question is how much variety with technology is there? There is a huge variety of sources that students and teachers are using in today's time to benefit their school work. The fourth question is what opportunities do students have to collaborate with or through technology? Students can teach each other different uses for technology. The last question is what opportunities do students have to create new knowledge or products with the technology? Students learn better when they take what they have learned and producing something from it.

Comments:
I thought this post was very thought out. I loved the questions he came up with to give to school leaders. The questions show just how much technology is needed in the school system today. Elementary school students have more knowledge about what is going on in the world now than we did when we were children; this is due to them having technology. If there is anyone who says that technology should not be in the schools, then they need to read this post. Technology is not used just for entertainment anymore, it is used to gain knowledge and what better place to gain knowledge than in a school?