tech tech tech

I'm a fan of technology. I find that it keeps my kinders a little more engaged with a new component of their education, it provides to hook to deeper learning. Today, there are so many different ways of incorporating technology into education that you could drown in it. As a new teacher, I think that I float on top of the pool pretty well, with only the occasional wave to leave me sputtering and wondering what on earth is going on. I think that for many others however, this is not the case.

This semester I have been taking a Technology in Education course as a part of my graduate degree plan. A lot of the activities have been mundane and mostly just time consuming, mindless activities. I came to the realization throughout the course though that this was not the case for all of my classmates. I feel as though I have been fortunate in being able to grow up with technology surrounding me in one way or another. My grandfather had a computer for almost as long as I can remember. My family got a home computer sometime when I was in middle school. In elementary school I was one of the fortunate ones that was able to play the original black and green Oregon Trail on giant floppy discs. I've just adapted and adjusted with the changes as they have come. When I don't get it, my mister does, and I'm happy with that.

Today I wrapped up my final assignment for my technology class (and am now essentially done with grad school for the semester, woohoo!) and I led a technology training for the teachers that work with me. The state of New Mexico is making changes regarding how it evaluates teachers. A part of this is to upload artifacts to a state website so that those who are removed enough from education to be called policy makers can judge whether or not I am an effective teacher by looking at a couple of PDFs. Making and uploading PDFs is now easy as can be with a couple of apps (Tiny Scan and Dropbox). I opened my mouth last week at a grade level professional development session with my principal about how easy this was and next thing I knew I was on the agenda for today's staff meeting to teach everyone how to do it. Overall the training went well. I prepped the other teachers with an email encouraging them to sign up for Dropbox and come prepared with questions. Most of them did and we worked out any remaining glitches this afternoon. I do however, have some teachers that did not grow up with technology as I have. As a result, small group trainings will now ensue and hopefully the technology that our school has purchased for us (including iPads) will be used more often and effectively. Of course, we'll see how much of my free time that I am rejoicing in by having finished grad school for a little while is now used up by helping others. I guess that's the price I pay for opening my big mouth.

Today was not all new-fangled technology though. Some of my students earned innovation time today and as a result I was presented with this fantastic water airplane!

My faceless inventor!