What is Effective Technology Integration for 21st Century Learners?

            Communication is a crucial means of learning and gaining knowledge for children in today’s world, and communicating through technological means is growing at an alarming rate. Although the cell phones and laptops in grade school classrooms may seem bothersome to many teachers, we have to consider that this is commonplace in the world these children have known since birth. Teachers should embrace the children’s thirst to understand and use new technologies and incorporate them into the educational setting (where appropriate).

            Technology opens so many doors for the students nowadays that can be manipulated to adhere to the curriculum. It allows for student exploration, communication and collaboration with others from a variety of diverse cultures from around the world; while inviting them to discover business, health and environmental issues/roles they play in the world we live. It allows for self expression, such as blogs, and opens an abundant world of information at the students fingertips. Access to all this information encourages learning in itself. A student must become information and media literate in order to be successful at narrowing searches, finding appropriate topics, wile also considering ethics and morality - where did these sources come from? Is the writer biased? Is the source reliable? Etc.

            Technology in the classroom can be stimulating for the students, while also providing many opportunities for differentiation of learning. BUT, to be effective in the classroom, the technology used must comply with the curriculum and benefit the students in both their preparation for government testing, as well as for their life and career development. A 21^st century curriculum should blend many aspects together such as learning to use skills, knowledge, information, media, literacy, ect across all subjects and learning themes. Students should learn to be flexible and adapt constantly and consistently to learning new technologies and challenges. It should stimulate initiative and self directed learning in the discovery and use of various technological methods. Traits such as these, which can be developed in grade schools, will carry through to real life career situations where they will have the ability to navigate the technological aids important in career advancement.

            21^st century learners will find the ability to be creative in many different mediums within the curriculum, for example, developing web pages, documents, presentations, videos, blogs, animations. I feel that it will be my job to continually learn, incorporate and pass on technological knowledge within my classroom. I believe technology should be integrated in creative ways to increase children’s learning by enabling them to be involved as active learners and allow them to discover and communicate knowledge through a number of mediums and methods.

What is an Effective Presentation?

When presenting on a subject area, it is first and foremost crucial that you as a speaker are thoroughly knowledgeable in your topic area and possess the ability to answer questions within the audience’s realm of understanding. Doing your research, being prepared and keeping slides and information organized are key elements in developing a successful presentation.

Knowing your audience will help you to communicate with the appropriate language so as to make a better impression. It may also help you choose better visual aids to include in the slides, ones that may appeal more to the generation, situation, or status of the viewers.

Developing a theme and keeping on track with that theme will be very beneficial for the clarity of your presentation. It will provide consistency throughout the presentation and avoid trailing off or getting sidetracked, and will also be much easier to understand as an audience. The theme should be present in all aspects – the information, the method you choose to present with, and the visual components. If something is out of place or irrelevant to your theme, the audience will notice.

The use of visual aids in a presentation allows for not only appeal and interest, but also increases the retention of what you’re teaching the audience. Combining visual information with textual or oral information is far more successful than one or the other in terms of what the audience will remember. If you simply fill a page with font and read it, interest and focus will quickly be lost. Another consideration is the template you choose. It also needs to be visually pleasing and must fit with the theme.

Font plays a large role in the success of a presentation. First of all the size needs to be appropriate, and in this case, usually bigger is better! The color is also important because it must stand out against the background enough so that it is the focus and is easy for the audience to read. It’s beneficial to keep type to a minimum, keeping it simple and clear will leave much more of an impression than a page filled with too much type that’s too small to read. 

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=dgk24hw8_0ds25r8z4

My first ever Blog!

Hello!
My name is Karly and this is my first time venturing into the world of blogging and I actually managed to get lost along the 3 step process. I'm not sure if I correctly chose a different template but heres hoping!

My view toward blogging has always been one of disinterest whether writing or reading them, but beginning my journey in PS1 has already opened my eyes to a number of advantages of using a blog within a classroom. It's a way of communicating with every child the instructions of an assignment, or sending out a reminder to bring in the next signed field trip form. It also provides a common area for discussion as well as an opportunity to explore and share many varieties of multimedia with both myself and their peers.

Using technology as a teacher is mandatory in order to communicate with the children and parents in many schools, so blogging seems to be an excellent way to relay information to all students and parents, as well as assisting with the many online students I may be teaching in the future!