Smithsonian Student Travel's 's powerful video linked below highlights the need for global education.
Teacher Guides and Articles
Oxfam Global Citizen Guide for Teachers
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Asia Society: Global Competence
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global_competence_asia_society.pdf | |
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Tony Wagner:
"Rigor Redefined": A poignant article demonstrating that regardless of the course, including Advanced Placement classes, that it is how we teach that will ensure student success in 21st Century life.
Video Resources
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Reflections
Investigating...Tony Jackson stresses the importance of investigative learning, which is also emphasized in the Educating for Global Competence text. With this type of assignment students are not simply seeking a “right answer”. Actually, this sounds a lot like Common Core. This is part of the "rigor" defined by Tony Wagner as well; if we just give the students the answers all of the time, then what are they really learning? How will they be able to adapt and be prepared for jobs that do not currently exist or a world we cannot imagine if they are not challenged to discover?
Dictionary.com defines culture as: "development or improvement of the mind by education or training." What does this new school culture look like? It's not always what we teach, but how we teach. Our school culture is one that should continue to foster confidence like Professor Zhao said, but also allow for creative, investigative discovery. Zhao noted that this is what other countries are actually studying about U.S. schools, and that it is the Gates-Jobs debate: more math and science, or more liberal arts? More engineers or more designers? In my opinion, we should still offer the wide range of choices that American schools have offered, from wood shop, art, physics, sports, French, history, English, algebra, and more. This can be maintained while still stressing the goals proposed by the Asia Foundation: investigating the world, recognizing perspectives, communicating ideas, and taking action. Finland's system is certainly one to model, and yet we should not "throw the baby out with the bath water" as we often do so quickly in education. We need to look at what works around the world, in our schools, in the work place, and model these strategies in our classrooms.
Other Great Sources:
Teach Unicef
Global Education Advisory Council
"Cosmopolitan Education", Luise Prior McCarty Ph.D.
Longview Foundation
Global Education Assessment Tools
Now that we understand what is meant by global education, recognize the need for global education, and have an idea of what it looks like in our schools, how do we know how well we are implementing it? How do we know if our students are in fact developing these competencies?
The New England Secondary School Consortium created a great global education assessment tool for school districts and teachers. It is clear and concise. The goal, as written in the text, states:
"Rather than give school leaders and teachers a simple list of recommendations, the tool offers a practical, step-by-step process that schools can use to assess their relative performance in key areas and shape their school-improvement plans." I recommend this as a first step in evaluating one's school, district, and teaching: http://www.greatschoolspartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/global_best_practices.pdf
The Asia Society provides a matrix for various disciplines (included below as snapshots). These may be used to evaluate students, but also for teachers to self-evaluate their own lessons and curriculum.
The New England Secondary School Consortium created a great global education assessment tool for school districts and teachers. It is clear and concise. The goal, as written in the text, states:
"Rather than give school leaders and teachers a simple list of recommendations, the tool offers a practical, step-by-step process that schools can use to assess their relative performance in key areas and shape their school-improvement plans." I recommend this as a first step in evaluating one's school, district, and teaching: http://www.greatschoolspartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/global_best_practices.pdf
The Asia Society provides a matrix for various disciplines (included below as snapshots). These may be used to evaluate students, but also for teachers to self-evaluate their own lessons and curriculum.
To evaluate my unit plan, I liked Frank Czarra's checklist (below) the best as it is specific and includes different categories. While the Asia Society (document above) has many great rubrics for various disciplines, each is more broad. Keep in mind, Czarra's checklist is not simply for one lesson or unit, but is means to evaluate all aspects of learning, including the school and district. Use this as an initial tool to evaluate your current lessons and curriculum and as a guide as you alter, rearrange, and revise your existing units and goals to reflect global competencies.
My own examination of a Teach Unicef unit for its integration of global competencies:
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Technology Inventory and Resources
The video Teaching in the 21st Century notes how we traditionally deliver information, the facts, the content, the skills, and yet our students can get information at their fingertips at any moment. The question was then posed: when is the last time you have had students create? We just wrote sonnets in the tenth grade class I teach so does that count? We read them to the class, but maybe next time students should make a spoken-word video and post it on You Tube or record it as a Podcast. But, is this necessary for sonnets? It would take the pressure off of performing live. Using technology for the sake of technology is pointless to me, but using it for the right purpose, at the right time, for the right lesson is essential. Suddenly sonnets may not be seen as some old writing that only Shakespeare wrote and could understand. The focus is not to reduce education and technology use for work place success, but to spark our students curiosity, to have them engaged (but not entertained), and to then yes, have them use higher-level thinking and technological skills in the learning process.
Technology and Me:
My own use of technology as a teaching tool is emerging. Now that we have projectors with our computers attached, I have integrated many Youtube clips, memes, podcasts, and other audio visuals to liven my lessons. We do have a Facebook group for our program and each graduating class has a group, but high school students use Facebook less and less now and I don’t use Twitter or Instagram, thus I am trying to figure out how to best use social media with students. This year I used Remind, and loved it! The students liked it too. It was especially helpful if I needed them to bring something particular to class for instance. This year I plan to set-up a separate Remind for the parents where I will send "big" announcements. I also want to try some of the other features, such as surveys and quizzes to see how this goes.
Kids do create Power Point slides to assist in their presentations in my classes. Actually, I did have class blogs previously (for about three years), which was a great way to have kids post their work and comment on one another’s, but then two years ago my class sizes of 35 kids did not permit this. This past year however, my numbers were back to about 27 in a class and with my own excitement with online discussion with TGC, I brought the blog back! Since most of the students have gmail accounts, I used Blogger, which I find easy to use. I created one blog for each class and when we went to the lab, I called the students up individually to invite them to the blog (setting is closed for invitees only). Once they accepted the invitation, they could post and comment. I used this mostly for reflective and creative writing. For example, students were assigned to write something "gothic" during our Poe unit, and shared these pieces here. I also had my ninth grade students reflect on "The Danger of a Single Story" by considering what the "single story" of their life may be. This is a powerful way for students to share their work, and since they know their peers are reading their posts, I think it also improves the quality of the writing they submit. Maybe this coming year I will have them make a video of their single story to post!
One of the most simple, yet effective ways to integrate technology in the classroom allowed students, to gasp, use their phones. This was actually a big step for me as I am a stickler about phone use, however, I now know it is important to teach kids how to use their devices for something other than entertainment. When practicing for a speech I have always told the students to practice in front of the mirror and of course in front of their parents. This year, the students had time in class to practice in a small groups, and I had them record themselves on their phones so they could see for themselves. What a simple, yet effective way to "level-up"!
The main idea here is starting small, especially for those educators like me who aren't exactly afraid of technology, but don't utilize it as quickly as others. While I plan to continue using what I have described above this year, now that I have built this website, this is something I feel comfortable having students create. Hopefully, we can connect with my host teacher and his students in Morocco and other classrooms around the world as well. The sources included below offer some great lessons for global education. Use what you are comfortable with, and build from there. Small steps are better than no steps at all!
Sites and Sources for Global Education Ideas:
Primary Source www.primarysource.org
On the Primary Source website there are some great lesson plan and unit ideas for teachers. I was really excited about one that involved web quests for students (“The Chinese Dragon: A Powerful Metaphor in Chinese Cultural History”) but then I noticed it was for fourth grade! I still plan to check out some of the resources in the unit; if there is a cute short video I might integrate it into the Chinese literature unit I teach. I did see some other ideas for my history cohorts such as “Latin America and the Cold War” and one about modern Afghanistan. The website included many links to sources where you can then try to set-up video conferencing and other interactions with kids around the world, but as far as I can tell Primary Source doesn’t host this, you need to then go to the other sites. I thought the one about linking up with a Peace Corps Volunteer who you follow would be neat. Some of the professional development courses look great, as well as the volunteer abroad programs, but I found more of this on the Omprakash site (listed below).
globalschools.net:
My first impression of global schools.net is that it is more for elementary or middle school teachers and learners, but then I saw the program titled “Doors to Diplomacy” for high school students. What a cool project and competition! Working in teams of 2-4, students can design a web based project that promotes the importance of diplomacy. This is a competition and the winners get $2,000 a prize and the school receive a $500 award. In addition to submitting their projects, reviewing their peers’ submissions is part of the program. This would be ideal for the seniors in our program. Also, since my first impression is that the site may have more for younger learners, I highly recommend elementary educators interested in global studies check this out.
Schooltube:
I have heard of this before so I figured this would be a good site to investigate and I am glad I did! The post on the home page immediately caught my eye: “Behind the Scenes: Lego Animation”. This appears to be a “How-to” for people made by kids. Wow! What a great idea for speech classes. I know our students senior year deliver a “How-to” speech so this might add a new twist for them. I did not see anything as far as a newsletter or email updates, but I was able to do to the Facebook page and “like” it to follow.
Edublogs:
This is free for teachers and for universities. It says it is a great way to replace newsletters, post videos, podcasts, and documents. I do like how it says it is “by teachers for teachers” and that it offers a network. The only thing I was thinking is that I might be able to do some of this with the webpage at my school. I have used Blogger in the past and am curious whether or not this is much different. It claims to be secure and safe which is good. I also “liked” it on Facebook as a way to keep informed.
Newseum:
Oh my gosh I am in love! I have heard about this museum in D.C. and it is on my list when I go there next, but I didn’t know there were online resources. It says there are 2,000 front pages from around the world! This is great for current events. For example, when learning about Africa, I could have kids follow their assigned country’s front page for a week. It is also great for those studying another language. There are also some videos that look incredible. There was one about the First Amendment called 450 words that is only about 15 minutes, one about the Berlin Wall, Edward Murrow, there is so much! Lesson plans are available. What a great way to teach media literacy. As this is news related, materials for all disciplines should be easy to find.
Global Nomads Group:
According to the website, “GNG’s mission is to foster dialogue and understanding amongst the world’s youth by bringing the world to the classroom via interactive technology”. This is what is missing from my classroom: interactive technology. I see that there was a Global Citizens in Action Media Festival live from Kabul, Afghanistan. This would have been cool to see. I am also following this group now on Facebook and if I see more interesting material will sign-up to be a participant and get the newsletter. I will also check them out on Linkedin. Hopefully next year we can participate in online festivals or conferences.
ePals http://www.epals.com
What a great resource for any grade and discipline! Here teachers can post their interest and needs. For example, I could post that I teach World Literature to ninth graders and have 90 students in my three classes. Our group is interested in discussing common literature readings, cultural topics, and global issues. As native English speakers we are also interested in helping English learners practice their language. Given a profile like this, teachers from around the world can search to see if we match their interests. If so, we can connect and have our students begin email correspondence. There are many incredible opportunities for World Language teachers for students to have real-world practice with native speakers. Perhaps the email writing could lead to Skyping, and then even a cultural exchange!
Skype www.skype.com
My host teacher in Morocco, Youssef, had Skype conferences set-up with a school in Massachusetts. He discovered the partnership through the Global Nomads group. I believe the sessions were just once a month, and each session had a global issue theme. He did this with his English club group. As coordinating time schedules will be one issue to work out given time zone differences around the globe, therefore, first trying this with a small group of students as a co-curricular option might be a great way to start. With 30 or more students in a class, this could be a challenge when first attempting this.
Other great global education sources:
iEARN www. iearn.org
ConnectAllSchools http://www.connectallschools.org
Peace Corps Speakers Match http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/speakersmatch/
Omprakash http://www.omprakash.org/about
Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org
Outreach World http://www.outreachworld.org
The UN Works http://www.un.org/works/
Global Education Conference http://www.globaleducationconference.com
Online Newspapers http://www.onlinenewspapers.com
Technology Access and Use in LPS and at SHS
While we have many great capabilities in our school district to utilize technology in our classrooms, our district is still emerging in this are. With the recent bond approval and the district Level-Up training initiative started last year, we are positioned to make great strides in this area. As part of our “Level Up” technology training session last year, staff could learn about Skyping from a middle school band teacher, about iPads in the 6th grade classroom, Google Drive, Google classroom, Prezi presentations, ImagineNation Matters for storytelling in elementary schools, clickers in the classroom, and so much more. This is intended to be an every year event, so this is the perfect time to consider revising some lessons to help students develop their technological skills, not to mention to improve our own tech skills.
What follows here is an overview of technology use by staff members as of November 2014.
Access and Progams: The library media specialist explained to me that teachers can access any online site that the Federal government does not mandate blocking (i.e. pornography). Google Chrome and Drive, Microsoft Office 2010, and Windows Media Player are the basic programs that all computers in our school have. All students now have gmail accounts through school, which means document sharing and other Google Chrome/Drive features can be used more regularly. We are all able to use Moodle through the county resources and we have access to the Michigan Electronic Library (MEL) for all kinds of online resources and databases.
Students cannot access social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter on the school computers (I had a student try such sites to verify for me), however Pinterest and Youtube are available to students. Students have no problems listening to or accessing podcasts from most websites, and they can take video on most computers, however other than the computers in our Broadcast Communications Class, they cannot edit video in the regular computer labs. Since all of our computers do have cameras, using Skype would not be a problem, although I don’t know of anyone in the building who has used it. With the recent wi-fi addition, students and staff should be able to access even more, although from their own devices.
The computers in the Photo room have Photoshop 3, yet currently Photoshop 6 is available. Our career and tech center does have the current version of Photoshop for Graphic Design. It seems the programs are based on the courses, for instance:
Graphic Design: Blackboard Academic Suite, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign
Architecture and Design: AutoCAD and Google Sketch-Up software.
Engineering Design: AutoCAD and MIMIC software
Teacher Technology Use: The district just switched providers to SharpSchool, and while we had some training on how to use the new tools, I know there are many staff members who need more time and assistance to adequately use their teacher webpage. I do know that there are more “blog” like possibilities to this platform than what we had previously. There are many teachers, especially in the Math and Science Departments that post everything for their classes on their websites: monthly/weekly schedules, review guides, assignments, etc. While I am interested in having more about my classes, activities, and expectations, on my teacher webpage, I do not plan to use a website to post all of our work and schedules. I worry that this can also make students too dependent on this. It is okay for them to write down their assignments, type them in their phone, and put a handout in their folder!
When I first surveyed staff about their technology use, I was a little disappointed when most staff members reported that for technology they use a DVD player and an Epson projector with the occasional Elmo/document camera, but as more responses were posted, there were more unique uses.
Many of the teachers in our school are using Remind and apps/programs where the students text answers during review games and other class tasks. The band and orchestra teacher uses technology daily: musictheory.net, Teoria.com, apps - smart music, and GarageBand. The Broadcast Communications teacher uses Mac desktops for editing using Cur pro editing systems/software. One of the math teachers responded to my technology inquiry: “TI Nspire wireless navigator system for calculators, Mimeo Interactive white board, wireless tablet that works with the Mimeo board.” Another math teacher said the kids use their cell phones for formative assessments. A Spanish teacher stated, “projector, conjuguemos.com, quia.com, video streaming, overhead lol, remind, google”. One of the English teachers said she loves use iTalc in the computers labs (so you can see what is going on in the network) and I know this teacher uses Moodle regularly.
It seems most of us are using technology to present our material in a more up-to-date, interesting way. We also use various databases, programs, and search engines for research with students. This is certainly an improvement from year's past, but now we should inch closer and closer to having our students use technology to investigate and create!
Technology and Me:
My own use of technology as a teaching tool is emerging. Now that we have projectors with our computers attached, I have integrated many Youtube clips, memes, podcasts, and other audio visuals to liven my lessons. We do have a Facebook group for our program and each graduating class has a group, but high school students use Facebook less and less now and I don’t use Twitter or Instagram, thus I am trying to figure out how to best use social media with students. This year I used Remind, and loved it! The students liked it too. It was especially helpful if I needed them to bring something particular to class for instance. This year I plan to set-up a separate Remind for the parents where I will send "big" announcements. I also want to try some of the other features, such as surveys and quizzes to see how this goes.
Kids do create Power Point slides to assist in their presentations in my classes. Actually, I did have class blogs previously (for about three years), which was a great way to have kids post their work and comment on one another’s, but then two years ago my class sizes of 35 kids did not permit this. This past year however, my numbers were back to about 27 in a class and with my own excitement with online discussion with TGC, I brought the blog back! Since most of the students have gmail accounts, I used Blogger, which I find easy to use. I created one blog for each class and when we went to the lab, I called the students up individually to invite them to the blog (setting is closed for invitees only). Once they accepted the invitation, they could post and comment. I used this mostly for reflective and creative writing. For example, students were assigned to write something "gothic" during our Poe unit, and shared these pieces here. I also had my ninth grade students reflect on "The Danger of a Single Story" by considering what the "single story" of their life may be. This is a powerful way for students to share their work, and since they know their peers are reading their posts, I think it also improves the quality of the writing they submit. Maybe this coming year I will have them make a video of their single story to post!
One of the most simple, yet effective ways to integrate technology in the classroom allowed students, to gasp, use their phones. This was actually a big step for me as I am a stickler about phone use, however, I now know it is important to teach kids how to use their devices for something other than entertainment. When practicing for a speech I have always told the students to practice in front of the mirror and of course in front of their parents. This year, the students had time in class to practice in a small groups, and I had them record themselves on their phones so they could see for themselves. What a simple, yet effective way to "level-up"!
The main idea here is starting small, especially for those educators like me who aren't exactly afraid of technology, but don't utilize it as quickly as others. While I plan to continue using what I have described above this year, now that I have built this website, this is something I feel comfortable having students create. Hopefully, we can connect with my host teacher and his students in Morocco and other classrooms around the world as well. The sources included below offer some great lessons for global education. Use what you are comfortable with, and build from there. Small steps are better than no steps at all!
Sites and Sources for Global Education Ideas:
Primary Source www.primarysource.org
On the Primary Source website there are some great lesson plan and unit ideas for teachers. I was really excited about one that involved web quests for students (“The Chinese Dragon: A Powerful Metaphor in Chinese Cultural History”) but then I noticed it was for fourth grade! I still plan to check out some of the resources in the unit; if there is a cute short video I might integrate it into the Chinese literature unit I teach. I did see some other ideas for my history cohorts such as “Latin America and the Cold War” and one about modern Afghanistan. The website included many links to sources where you can then try to set-up video conferencing and other interactions with kids around the world, but as far as I can tell Primary Source doesn’t host this, you need to then go to the other sites. I thought the one about linking up with a Peace Corps Volunteer who you follow would be neat. Some of the professional development courses look great, as well as the volunteer abroad programs, but I found more of this on the Omprakash site (listed below).
globalschools.net:
My first impression of global schools.net is that it is more for elementary or middle school teachers and learners, but then I saw the program titled “Doors to Diplomacy” for high school students. What a cool project and competition! Working in teams of 2-4, students can design a web based project that promotes the importance of diplomacy. This is a competition and the winners get $2,000 a prize and the school receive a $500 award. In addition to submitting their projects, reviewing their peers’ submissions is part of the program. This would be ideal for the seniors in our program. Also, since my first impression is that the site may have more for younger learners, I highly recommend elementary educators interested in global studies check this out.
Schooltube:
I have heard of this before so I figured this would be a good site to investigate and I am glad I did! The post on the home page immediately caught my eye: “Behind the Scenes: Lego Animation”. This appears to be a “How-to” for people made by kids. Wow! What a great idea for speech classes. I know our students senior year deliver a “How-to” speech so this might add a new twist for them. I did not see anything as far as a newsletter or email updates, but I was able to do to the Facebook page and “like” it to follow.
Edublogs:
This is free for teachers and for universities. It says it is a great way to replace newsletters, post videos, podcasts, and documents. I do like how it says it is “by teachers for teachers” and that it offers a network. The only thing I was thinking is that I might be able to do some of this with the webpage at my school. I have used Blogger in the past and am curious whether or not this is much different. It claims to be secure and safe which is good. I also “liked” it on Facebook as a way to keep informed.
Newseum:
Oh my gosh I am in love! I have heard about this museum in D.C. and it is on my list when I go there next, but I didn’t know there were online resources. It says there are 2,000 front pages from around the world! This is great for current events. For example, when learning about Africa, I could have kids follow their assigned country’s front page for a week. It is also great for those studying another language. There are also some videos that look incredible. There was one about the First Amendment called 450 words that is only about 15 minutes, one about the Berlin Wall, Edward Murrow, there is so much! Lesson plans are available. What a great way to teach media literacy. As this is news related, materials for all disciplines should be easy to find.
Global Nomads Group:
According to the website, “GNG’s mission is to foster dialogue and understanding amongst the world’s youth by bringing the world to the classroom via interactive technology”. This is what is missing from my classroom: interactive technology. I see that there was a Global Citizens in Action Media Festival live from Kabul, Afghanistan. This would have been cool to see. I am also following this group now on Facebook and if I see more interesting material will sign-up to be a participant and get the newsletter. I will also check them out on Linkedin. Hopefully next year we can participate in online festivals or conferences.
ePals http://www.epals.com
What a great resource for any grade and discipline! Here teachers can post their interest and needs. For example, I could post that I teach World Literature to ninth graders and have 90 students in my three classes. Our group is interested in discussing common literature readings, cultural topics, and global issues. As native English speakers we are also interested in helping English learners practice their language. Given a profile like this, teachers from around the world can search to see if we match their interests. If so, we can connect and have our students begin email correspondence. There are many incredible opportunities for World Language teachers for students to have real-world practice with native speakers. Perhaps the email writing could lead to Skyping, and then even a cultural exchange!
Skype www.skype.com
My host teacher in Morocco, Youssef, had Skype conferences set-up with a school in Massachusetts. He discovered the partnership through the Global Nomads group. I believe the sessions were just once a month, and each session had a global issue theme. He did this with his English club group. As coordinating time schedules will be one issue to work out given time zone differences around the globe, therefore, first trying this with a small group of students as a co-curricular option might be a great way to start. With 30 or more students in a class, this could be a challenge when first attempting this.
Other great global education sources:
iEARN www. iearn.org
ConnectAllSchools http://www.connectallschools.org
Peace Corps Speakers Match http://wws.peacecorps.gov/wws/speakersmatch/
Omprakash http://www.omprakash.org/about
Edutopia http://www.edutopia.org
Outreach World http://www.outreachworld.org
The UN Works http://www.un.org/works/
Global Education Conference http://www.globaleducationconference.com
Online Newspapers http://www.onlinenewspapers.com
Technology Access and Use in LPS and at SHS
While we have many great capabilities in our school district to utilize technology in our classrooms, our district is still emerging in this are. With the recent bond approval and the district Level-Up training initiative started last year, we are positioned to make great strides in this area. As part of our “Level Up” technology training session last year, staff could learn about Skyping from a middle school band teacher, about iPads in the 6th grade classroom, Google Drive, Google classroom, Prezi presentations, ImagineNation Matters for storytelling in elementary schools, clickers in the classroom, and so much more. This is intended to be an every year event, so this is the perfect time to consider revising some lessons to help students develop their technological skills, not to mention to improve our own tech skills.
What follows here is an overview of technology use by staff members as of November 2014.
Access and Progams: The library media specialist explained to me that teachers can access any online site that the Federal government does not mandate blocking (i.e. pornography). Google Chrome and Drive, Microsoft Office 2010, and Windows Media Player are the basic programs that all computers in our school have. All students now have gmail accounts through school, which means document sharing and other Google Chrome/Drive features can be used more regularly. We are all able to use Moodle through the county resources and we have access to the Michigan Electronic Library (MEL) for all kinds of online resources and databases.
Students cannot access social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter on the school computers (I had a student try such sites to verify for me), however Pinterest and Youtube are available to students. Students have no problems listening to or accessing podcasts from most websites, and they can take video on most computers, however other than the computers in our Broadcast Communications Class, they cannot edit video in the regular computer labs. Since all of our computers do have cameras, using Skype would not be a problem, although I don’t know of anyone in the building who has used it. With the recent wi-fi addition, students and staff should be able to access even more, although from their own devices.
The computers in the Photo room have Photoshop 3, yet currently Photoshop 6 is available. Our career and tech center does have the current version of Photoshop for Graphic Design. It seems the programs are based on the courses, for instance:
Graphic Design: Blackboard Academic Suite, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe InDesign
Architecture and Design: AutoCAD and Google Sketch-Up software.
Engineering Design: AutoCAD and MIMIC software
Teacher Technology Use: The district just switched providers to SharpSchool, and while we had some training on how to use the new tools, I know there are many staff members who need more time and assistance to adequately use their teacher webpage. I do know that there are more “blog” like possibilities to this platform than what we had previously. There are many teachers, especially in the Math and Science Departments that post everything for their classes on their websites: monthly/weekly schedules, review guides, assignments, etc. While I am interested in having more about my classes, activities, and expectations, on my teacher webpage, I do not plan to use a website to post all of our work and schedules. I worry that this can also make students too dependent on this. It is okay for them to write down their assignments, type them in their phone, and put a handout in their folder!
When I first surveyed staff about their technology use, I was a little disappointed when most staff members reported that for technology they use a DVD player and an Epson projector with the occasional Elmo/document camera, but as more responses were posted, there were more unique uses.
Many of the teachers in our school are using Remind and apps/programs where the students text answers during review games and other class tasks. The band and orchestra teacher uses technology daily: musictheory.net, Teoria.com, apps - smart music, and GarageBand. The Broadcast Communications teacher uses Mac desktops for editing using Cur pro editing systems/software. One of the math teachers responded to my technology inquiry: “TI Nspire wireless navigator system for calculators, Mimeo Interactive white board, wireless tablet that works with the Mimeo board.” Another math teacher said the kids use their cell phones for formative assessments. A Spanish teacher stated, “projector, conjuguemos.com, quia.com, video streaming, overhead lol, remind, google”. One of the English teachers said she loves use iTalc in the computers labs (so you can see what is going on in the network) and I know this teacher uses Moodle regularly.
It seems most of us are using technology to present our material in a more up-to-date, interesting way. We also use various databases, programs, and search engines for research with students. This is certainly an improvement from year's past, but now we should inch closer and closer to having our students use technology to investigate and create!
Disclaimer:
This is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views and information presented are the grantee's own an do not represent the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program , IREX, or the U.S. Department of State.
Similarly, the views and information are my own and do not represent Stevenson High School, the School of Global Education, Livonia Public Schools, or the State of Michigan.
This is not an official U.S. Department of State website. The views and information presented are the grantee's own an do not represent the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program , IREX, or the U.S. Department of State.
Similarly, the views and information are my own and do not represent Stevenson High School, the School of Global Education, Livonia Public Schools, or the State of Michigan.