21ST CENTURY TEACHING
as a teacher! Students come to the classroom prepared to learn using more than just a textbook and a lecture. They want to see, do, and truly experience the world. As a facilitator of learning, the teacher guides, observes, and directs instruction as learners explore and discover information in a collaborative social context. Technology offers students real-world 21st Century experiences while developing critical thinking and problem solving skills. The following article describes technology tools and activities that can easily and effectively be integrated into classroom instruction.
Key Principles of Classroom Technology Use
Technology Integration for Learning Technology surrounds us, both as consumers and as creators of information. With the influx of technology in daily life, the need to effectively use instructional technology has never been greater. Technology has the potential to engage students through its interactive medium and to help guide them in critical and reflective thought. Technology tools, hardware, and software provide opportunities to communicate, to manipulate and analyze information, and to save work for later exploration and additional synthesis. Students who access Web-based applications or place content on the Internet become producers of information and ultimately creators of new knowledge. Presentation software, video, and student response systems are dynamic ways to engage students as well as to evaluate their overall understanding.
It is important that the technology embedded in a lesson supports your learning goals. For example, the technology tool MyStoryMaker (
http://www.carnegielibrary.org/kids/ mystorymaker/) may be used to fill in transition time between class activities. However, if students are given little direction or focus in their overall learning process, this activity may not enhance learning. To make activities with MyStoryMaker meaningful learning experiences, students could develop their own stories, or highlight main points of a story they completed in their class reading lesson. Original stories engage students and provide teachers with a more effective way to evaluate lesson goals such as:
• Students will understand that all stories contain similar elements • Students will know the major elements of a story (e.g. character, plot, setting, problem, and solution)
• Students will be able to identify the beginning, middle, and end of a story
Technology Integration for Assessments Assessments and evaluations measure student understanding, as well as the quality of
62 Virginia Educational Leadership Vol. 8 No. 1 Spring 2011
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