Photo Lit Collage TKM Blog Post Instructions

Students will come to the Blogger website to write their reflection on the photo lit collage they created. This blog should be between 200 to 500 words long going into what story the students' pictures tell, it should explain how the captions they made connect to To Kill A Mockingbird, and have a brief description of The Great Depression. If students used a photo archive other than the one I provided, they must explain why it appealed to them. Also in this blog, students should try to think about how the real Great Depression in Alabama affected the fictional story of To Kill A Mockingbird. Blogs will be uploaded to the course website where students can earn extra credit for commenting on each other's blogs. Up to five points will be added for extra credit. Upon completion of their blog posts, students will share what they wrote along with their completed photo collages, which should be printed out and held up for the class to see. The total project is worth 100 points.

Selective Power With Technology In The Classroom

Technology in today's classroom is a necessity that cannot be ignored. With the main source of news being presented to us through technology, the proper use of it in the classroom is more important now than ever before. When we think about engage, enhance, and extend, we must now know that worksheets and textbook reading simply aren't going to cut it anymore. Students who rely solely on these outdated practices of learning miss out on making learning work for them. The process of engaging, enhancing, and extending is both the teacher and students' opportunity to carry out. Since technology is so available and abundant, it only makes sense to let it guide the class in hitting these three 'e's.

The practicality and availability for technology use in the classroom will vary by subject matter and school. For my instruction purposes, I will be considering technology in Secondary English classrooms. From what I've seen on both the student and teacher side of learning, hands-on projects that the students feel like they have a say in keep the material discussed with them as they're learning. Going beyond the wonderful world of PowerPoint's and Jeopardy quizzes, students can be encouraged to recreate scenes read in a play, lead a class discussion based on questions they've developed through reading, rewrite a segment of what they read from a different character's perspective, create charts that map out the literature's events and draw connections, color a picture they see when they read and explain it, write a poem based on common themes they found throughout their reading, or even create a scavenger hunt based on the plot line of whatever literature is being studied. While all these activities don't demand technology, it can be used to video the students' projects so that they can see themselves and so that future students have a model to refer to when the time comes. It can also be used to enhance their understanding and teaching of whatever mode of work they choose. Teachers can introduce their students to programs such as Animoto, Glogster, Symbaloo, and Active Inspire, so that students can develop and utilize those technology skills in the safety of the classroom. The classroom environment today demands to be an oriented space that exposes students to technological tools they will come across again with more confidence and ability than they would have had in an outdated classroom setting.

Students who have a say over their learning don't lose that control when they change the subject matter they are studying. Whether they're learning English or mathematics, the best way to personalize and create lifelong skills is to learn about your students and create technologically based activities that coincide with their personal interests. One author who delves into the idea of student-centered learning is Marcia Powell in "5 Ways to Make Your Classroom Student-Centered." Teachers have to be able to share classroom control with their students. Small group work is an almost foolproof method of getting kids on track with their learning. The most important thing to remember with technology in the classroom by means of student-facilitated learning is that you must have enough interesting and rigorous work for the students to do. Not every student is going to be learning at the same pace, and they shouldn't necessarily. As a teacher I will challenge the students who need more rigorous work and scaffold the ones who need more guidance by letting both parties use technology to shape their understanding.

Some schools have gone as far as to let technology run their entire classroom. This however doesn't seem to be the answer for me. It is possible for students to be too distracted by technology so it's important for teachers to have different options for the students to work with. I would make this work in my classroom by having the students decide if they wanted to write a paper, do a project, or act something out. William Huntsberry talks about classrooms that are dripping with technology in what he calls, "The Classroom of the Future", where students use their laptops throughout the class and teachers serve as technological assistants throughout the day. This may be a bit too far because students need guidance technology cannot provide. I will provide my students with technology whenever possible, but I will not let that tool be their only teacher. When students can have power over their learning, they can be more engaged and even enthralled with the material at hand. It is up to us teachers to create lesson plans that allow for student choice and student power to run the classroom with the help of approved technological practices.

References
Huntsberry, W. (2015, January 12). Meet the classroom of the future
Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/01/12/370966699/meet-the-classroom-of-the-future

Powell, M. (2013, December 24). 5 ways to make your classroom student-centered
Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2013/12/24/ctq_powell_strengths.html