Integrated Tech Unit and Lesson

Blog topic #4

The main lesson I learned from this experience of giving a lesson is to never go first.  

 

It was silly of me to think I understood how to do an interdisciplinary integrating-technology lesson in front of a group of my peers-who were not really my peers.  While I understood this was to be a lesson from the unit,  It was not clear to me that we were teaching a specific age of student with specific background information.  This became clear, right before the presentation, when our teacher clarified this, complete with a peer evaluation that we had never seen before.

My first goal has always been, regardless of what my district, principal, or teacher tell me, is to make my content friendly for students of different background knowledge, having diverse proficiency and, yes, age.   Perhaps we had not fully understood the assignment. 

 

Specifically in our lesson, I still couldn't figure out how to dim the lights.  I can't write on the board and talk at the same time and usually have to plan this ahead of time or have a student assistant.  Sometimes when I am teaching, I have to be creative and give students a different task if I have a huge tech problem. 

I have learned how to use the projector in my class and coordinate it with both my pc and mac.  I can do a video conference with Spain, and video at the same time.  I can edit my movies and make my own podcast.

 

I was particularly thrown off in our class by the introduction of what I felt were new objectives just prior to our lesson.  Had I fully understood we could not "step out of our teacher to teacher roles" or that we had to give "our students" and age, prior knowledge, and opportunity to use the tech in our class...  I would have just done the lesson in English and assumed High School with little or no Spanish. 

 

So, faulty rubric and undefined common objectives... somebody's comment was particularly hilarious... that they feel fluent now as a result of our lesson.  :)

I think Courtney and I collaboratively developed an awesome unit, that I'm sure I will be using in the future.  I thank Courtney for being patient with my learning curve on the topic...I learned so much about Frida, art, and Mexican History.  THANK YOU!

 

Reflecting on Planning by design... it is great if you have specific content related or thematic essential questions when everyone speaks the same language.  If you are building a skill amongst a diverse population with a varied background knowledge, not so good.  Is my outcome that everyone learns specific Spanish vocabulary better?  No, my outcome is that everyone experiences progress in their language acquisition.  This is best done with individualized learning contracts and growth portfolios.  

 

Technology Pedagogical Content Knowledge- this is an interesting theory, but, promoted by those who promote more use of technology in education.  I think Technology is as much (or as little) a tool as Spanish.  It has nothing to do with Pedagogical Content Knowledge.  (Nice try, though)  I should invent Spanish Pedagogical Content Knowledge and insist that everyone teach their content using Spanish.  Technology is a tool, nothing more, nothing less.  It is nice to learn about the tool.  As soon as technology teaches Spanish, I know I will be doing something else.

The most important thing is to stay ahead of the obsolescence curve.  Especially, since Technology continues to try to make us perceive obsolescence.  I speak Spanish, Italian, and German.  I am learning to speak "tech."  I teach.