EDU 697 Week 1 Discussion

Step 1: Research
Summarize the article in one paragraph, including an overview of the topic, key concepts, findings and recommendations. Include the APA formatted reference information.

The peer-reviewed journal I found through the ERIC database was all about incorporating the iPad into the classroom to promote literacy and enhance students’ academic experience. Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) made the important point in this article that digital technology should be used to enhance academic goals and support students’ learning. This study focused on a fourth grade teacher who was exploring the use of iPads in her classroom in order to help teach print-based literacy skills. The study found that the iPads offered great applications and strategies for the students such as digital, interactive books, which allowed for differentiation and individual support for the learners. Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) explained that digital, interactive books using the iPad, required students to understand new literacies, but provided them with great affordances. These affordances or advantages included supporting individual readers’ text comprehension and possibly engaging struggling readers. Other applications used through the iPad to help teach literacy that were explained in this article were Doodle Buddy and Popplet. Both applications received positive feedback from the students and helped with their comprehension skills. Some of the advantages found regarding these apps were that students were not confined to a specific layout, they did not limit students like a worksheet may have, they helped with visualizing, encouraged rereading of the text, and allowed for digital literacy skills to be learned. One recommendation from Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) was to carefully consider when to incorporate the iPads into instruction and student activities to ensure that they are enhancing the learning experience, rather than simply acting as an “add-on” to the lesson.

In a second paragraph, using an example from your profession or another educational environment, what insights or ideas from your peer reviewed article can guide the use of technology to support learner achievement?

I really enjoyed reading this article, and felt I connected with the points made by the authors and the findings of the study. I absolutely agree with the main points made by Hutchison, Beschorner, and Schmidt-Crawford (2012) that digital technology should be incorporated into the classroom to enhance academic goals and promote student learning. I will continuously remind myself of this point made by the authors as I strive to integrate technology into my classroom on a more regular basis. I think this will be helpful for me professionally because in my district, and especially at my school, there has been such a push to incorporate more technology because the community wants to “keep up” with what’s new in education. I think with such a push coming from the district and our parent community, it can be easy to simply “throw” technology into a lesson just for the sake of it, but this is obviously not beneficial for the students. As mentioned in the article, I will carefully considered when to incorporate the iPad into my instruction and student activities, by researching applications and strategies that will address specific academic goals set forth by the lesson. As proved in this article there are many wonderful benefits offered by the integration of iPads in the classroom, and in order for my students to reap those benefits, I will always consider whether the applications and strategies I would like to incorporate are meaningful and truly allow for my students’ academic experience to be enhanced.

Reference:

Hutchison, A, Beschorner, B, & Schmidt-Crawford, D. (2012). Exploring the use of the

iPad for literacy learning. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=47fabfb4-a413-4423-a1a8-35bf52dd17e1%40sessionmgr198&vid=6&hid=128.

EDU 697 Introduction

 Hi Dr. Pressey and Classmates,

My name is Lisa Carbone.  I am 29 years old and am an elementary school teacher at the Poway Unified School District in San Diego, CA.  I love the school at which I work, and am continuously inspired by my colleagues and administrators.  I was hired in my district four years ago as a second grade teacher, and absolutely love this age range and the curriculum.

One of my professional goals has been to improve upon my ability to integrate meaningful technology into my classroom on a regular basis through my instruction and student activities. The MATLT program I have participated in over the last year has exceeded my expectations in providing me with the support needed to achieve this goal. 

Our school district has been promoting the integration of technology into classrooms over the last several years, however, I feel that not enough support, guidance, and collaboration has been provided in order for all teachers to truly be able to do this. Through the MATLT program, I have been provided with that support, guidance, and collaboration as well as hands-on experience with meaningful technology tools such as blogs, wikis, jing, winzip, and non-linear powerpoints to better achieve meaningful technology integration into my classroom. 

I have been influenced by so much in this program, but one piece of technology I have used regularly because of what I have learned from my courses is jing. This is a tool that I have used frequently this year with my students to demonstrate how to use programs, websites, and how to complete assignments. My next goal would be to eventually have my second graders use jing as a presentation tool. With jing, I originally struggled with navigating, capturing images, and recording, however, with trial and error, and simply "exploring" this tool I was able to overcome my initial challenges. I also found watching youtube videos on jing to be very helpful.  Sometimes keeping my info to five minutes could be a challenge, but it helped me to become more concise and clear with my words. 

This experience sharpened my knowledge with teaching and learning with technology because it helped me to overcome my "fear" of exploring a technology tool that was unknown to me. By familiarizing myself with a tool like jing, I proved that I am very capable of learning how to navigate and integrate new technology into my classroom, and it inspired me to continue learning about new technology tools and familiarizing myself with other programs as well. 

I love Mark Twain's quote, "I have never let my school interfere with my education". To me this quote represents that although school today is rooted in many traditions that came from hundreds of years ago, educators and students need to be proactive when it comes to the educational experience to ensure that all learners' strengths and needs are being met. For educators, this may mean adjusting certain traditions in order to reach the wide variety of learners in their classroom and prepare them as 21st Century students.