I Have a SmartBoard, So Now What!?

For the past eight weeks my life has consisted of quite a few things, ranging from training for a marathon every morning at 4:45 to working countless hours in my unfinished (but getting closer to finished) basement at 5:00 most evenings in order to prepare for the arrival of my first child sometime around early May. In addition to this, I have also tried to maintain a somewhat social life with my wife, all while enhancing my own classroom using several new tools and gadgets that I have learned about in my most recent Walden University class, The Impact of Technology on Education.

On many of my early morning runs, I have found myself wondering, “Self…do you think you got any new feeds from Packers News in your Google Reader account today?” To which I reply, “Of course you did! You live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. There is always news to report on the Green Bay Packers.” While editing my students’ classroom blog posts, I find myself sitting back and enjoying the simple, but humorous spin they put on what I see as a “regular” day in room B223. Most recently, my students and I felt a sense of accomplishment in creating and editing our (first) wiki, Glenbrook’s Book Shelf. We saw a need to share books we read with other fifth graders, and thought a wiki was a great medium to do so.

The past several weeks have opened my eyes to more than just RSS feeds, blogging, and wikis. After creating my first podcast, which you can listen to in my previous blog post, I am confident that Audacity is a great tool for students to use in more ways than for just podcasting. While I have yet to fully embrace Audacity in my classroom, I can see my students recording an excerpt from a book they read, and then transfer it to their wiki page about the same book, so that listeners can get a glimpse of what the book is about. I also know that my students would love the idea of creating their very own radio show, about topics that are interesting to them.

The Impact of Technology on Education has began to answer one of my biggest questions, from the beginning of the school year, “I have a Smart Board, but what else can I do that might keep my students coming back to school and wanting more, and more, and more!?” The answer, in short is that I had to explore the Read/Write Web on a personal level, and then give my students the exact same opportunities. Over the past eight weeks, my students have received access to websites like: Gaggle, PB Works, Edmodo, Blogger, and much more! These opportunities are teaching them how to be responsible, how to treat others with respect, and also internet safety. It is an opportunity for me to teach them about something that perhaps their parents are not as comfortable or knowledgeable with.

Over the next several years, I have big aspirations for myself, as far as what it means to be a teacher who integrates technology into the classroom effectively. One goal I have for myself is to figure out ways to take my Smart Board to the “next level” with my students. While I personally do not believe that a Smart Board is “a different tool, used in the same way,” it is clear that others may disagree. In taking my Smart Board knowledge to the next level, I want to prove that there is WAY more to an interactive whiteboard than just writing on it and having digital media literally at your fingertips (which no whiteboard or chalk board is able to do).

Another goal I have for myself is to continue seeking out new ways that technology can be used in the classroom. Blogging and updating/editing a classroom wiki with my students will now be a regular part of my daily classroom routine, but what about all the other millions of options out there? How can I make those options accessible to my students, in ways that they will be able to leave my room with a knowledge base that will allow them to function in the real, 21st century, world?

As I find myself racing towards the end of another masters course, with the goal of achieving a technology related degree, I often find myself thinking about a lot of the new ideas that authors, speakers, and teachers have recently pumped into my brain (even at 4:45 AM). These thoughts all come back to one of my first masters courses, where a majority of the eight weeks was spent analyzing what it meant to be an effective teacher in the 21st century. I understand that I have to be a 21st Century Skills activist in my profession. I know that kids learn differently in my fifth grade classroom, than I did 17 years ago when I sat in similar desks. I know that the tools and resources are at my fingertips, but it is just a matter of whether or not I have the skills and guts to pursue and use them. In knowing these critical elements of teaching to the “Digital Natives,” I know I am ready to apply my knowledge in an effort to become a more effective educator, and a leader among my peers.