Applications

 

Observing many students utilizing digital tablets working on their assignments for different subjects. It’s the applications that served the purposes for the students to accomplish their best quality of work. The following applications you can download to use on an iPad or any other types of digital tablet could be Excel, Power Point, Google Slides, Google Docs, BookShare, Notability, and the list goes on with many more. Applications are tools for students and teachers which help guide them to become not just creative but promote innovative learners. A great example of an application that I believe that would be useful is BookShare. BookShare is an application that can be used on the web. It can help students with blindness, cerebral palsy, and dyslexia. Furthermore, BookShare makes it possible for students with difficulties to read and perfect their unique learning styles.

 

Over the course of this semester I was able to understand the usages of many technology tools that changed my perspective on student learning.  The article “The Importance of Connecting Classrooms to the Real World”written by the Digital Newspaper Replicas stood out to me and aided in changing my perspective on student learning. What was meaningful to me by reading this article is how new technologies in the classroom provide opportunities for students to make connections to the real world. The first quote was “Incorporating real world connections into a lesson plan helps students understand why what they’re learning at is useful beyond school and university.”(Digital Newspaper Replicas. P. 4) Teachers can draw on technology applications to simulate real world situations to develop incredible skills that students will need moving forward in their careers or in life. Another quote that relates to the growth on my perspective is “Bringing material to life through newsfeeds, podcasts and streaming videos opens the classroom up to a wider world where students can start to see the value of learning.” (Digital Newspaper Replicas. P. 6) I have a better understanding of how various multimedia technologies could allow for more meaningful and enhanced learning experiences if students are actually able to make the connections between what they learn in the classroom and their daily lives.

 

An educational quote that I read in my statistics class is as follows: “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.”(H.G. Wells) It’s critically important for students to learn when working with their peers. My focus for my future students would be to improve their communication skills through whole class learning, creative assessments for learning, and collaborative learning experiences with the help of technology tools. My first step would be to implement group work objectives from student’s prior knowledge. Secondly, I’ll use these assessments and what they’ve learned from the objectives to setup group work that allows face to face work therefore improving their communication abilities.  For my third step, I’ll have challenging group work that will have the students engage in varieties of activities. Lastly, I’ll evaluate each group’s performances from their technologies to promote interactive experiences to increase motivational skills of demonstrating supportive strengths of my students.