EDLD+5364+Group+Project

When you begin a class that requires you work with your classmates there is an initial fear. Will I have teammates who understand my teaching styles? Will I be doing all of the hard work? Where will they be located? Will the distance matter? How busy will they be,? How much time will they contribute to the group project? Will they complete work that I feel is satisfactory? There are so many challenges before you when working in a group of peers you have never met or talked to.

Quickly, as with most experiences, your fears are relieved when you realize these are educators that you can learn a lot from. They are often peers who have much more experience than yourself and can provide invaluable guidance and knowledge. The fear of being able to collaborate while so far apart quickly dissolves and because a silly fear of the past. That is exactly why technology is a huge player in our world: we can communicate no matter what!

We find that "Using technology for technology's sake isn't a good application of instruction time or funding, and it is unlikely to improve student achievement. It is essential that teachers design a quality lesson plan first and then select the most appropriate technologies to support that lesson." (Pitler, Kuhn, and Malenoski, 2007). Our worlds are evolving and utilizing technology to speak to our students is essential. We have to know how to use it, however!

What? We have to STILL be quality teachers? But, I thought technology was suppose to teach for me?!? In our group project we decided that a current event was very important to include in our plan because it would draw students in to real world experiences //and// teach them important information. We wanted to create a project that would utilize technology as much as we could throughout.

Technology is a wonderful and engaging tool to use in our classrooms, but we have to still know how to create quality lessons. Technology will enhance our learning objectives for our students! If we do not know how to plan a good lesson no amount of technology can cover that up. We will end up wasting our time and our students'. We have too little time as it is!!!

Our group project ended up being something we are very proud of! We used technology to the best of our abilities and in the process created an engaging unit plan for all of our students no matter their educational/learning background.

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M. & Malenoski, K. (2007). //Using technology with classroom instruction that works.// Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 217.