Tech in my Placement

   I didn't expect the vast array of technology that the high school that I am placed at for my student teaching. Really. Each floor has several computer labs (both Mac and PC), as well as iPad carts that can be signed out for classroom use. The teachers communicate regularly with students and parents through online education platforms such as Moodle and Power School. Both of these examples made sense to me, especially considering the demographics of the community in which my placement is situated.

   It was the fact that is also a BYOD campus that surprised me the most! At my placement, individual teachers decide the degree of phones/laptops/etc. usage in their classrooms. The teacher's decision is first communicated to the students through a colored circle, posted on the teacher's doorway. Green= you have free reign, Yellow= you can use your device, but with caution, Red= you can't bring your device out of your bag. My mentor teacher (MT) has a yellow circle perpetually posted and does not spend class time monitoring students' technology usage. Her classes move at such a pace that students who are goofing off will miss a considerable amount in a short period of time. Additionally, she holds their attention through engaging, interactive lessons, such that I have observed a distracted tech-user only on the rare occasion.

   For the most part, I have experienced the lack of policing of phones and laptops as refreshing. It seems like monitoring student tech usage requires a lot of time and energy, over and beyond the typical classroom management. My placement's solution (this is probably oversimplified reasoning on my part) was to make this management headache a non-issue by encouraging the students to make productive use of their technology in the classroom. I have observed students pulling out their phones to look up their grades on Power School when my MT tells them that their latest lab grade has been posted. Some type all of their class notes on their laptops and many will bring out their phones during lab to use the timer function or take pictures of the lab setup. Each of these uses are excitingly simple ways in which students' technology can be made relevant to their learning process.

   Returning to school tech-usage policies, I asked one tech specialist about monitoring students' usage of social media and non-academic sites. The specialist let me know that they had tried to set up blocks in the past. However, students were continually finding ways around the blocks and letting others in on the secret, so the school dropped that policy as well. So, is the policy "Anything Goes" at my placement? Not exactly. Students and teachers are required to sign a Responsible Technology Usage Agreement at the beginning of the school year, which reminds the members of this school community that the available technology is a privilege and not a right. Students' access to the school's wireless can be revoked at any time for inappropriate usage.

   As for the technology in use in my MT's classroom, students have access to a number of different technologies on a daily basis, such as an LCD projector, Quizdom clickers and Vernier lab software for their graphing calculators. I think what makes my teacher's use of technology successful is that she has selected a few technologies that she has integrated into the daily ebb and flow of the classes' learning experience. If the Quizdom clicker case is open when the students walk in the door, they know it's a clicker day. They'll grab a clicker on their way to their seats and will be ready to use it when my MT posts a multiple choice question on her Power Point slide. The clickers are hooked up to the Power Point, such that my MT and the class can quickly assess student understanding of the presented problem as the graph of student answers is displayed on screen. I love that these forms of technology can be so unobtrusive and effective in enabling my MT to perform quick formative assessments and teaching tools! I look forward to investigating other technologies that can be useful in a science classroom for engaging students, for making their thinking visible and for deepening their understanding of core concepts!