This year is my first year out of the classroom. While I do love my new position as an eLearning Coach, reflecting on this matrix and the things that I used to do in my classroom has made me really miss it. When I was in my classroom I was always very excited to try new things, to think outside the box, and then I would reflect on what worked and what didn't and move on. This year my role is to help move other teachers forward in their integration of technology, and not all of them are so enthusiastic.
When I looked at the matrix and reflected on where I was last year when I was in the classroom, I think I would have to say I was somewhere between infusion and transformation. We were in our first year of our 1:1 initiative so each student had their own MacBook. I was teaching Careers and Finance to 7th and 8th graders and was constantly trying out new things.
A couple of the most successful project that I did were in my 7th grade Careers class. The first project was covering the content about resume writing and interview skills. I had students grouped together in teams, and each of them had a topic to cover. They were given the task of creating a video for an employment agency. The video was meant to be used for people coming into the agency seeking help with resume writing, interview, or whatever their topic was. I gave them a rubric and that was it. They had to do the research to learn about their topic, and then find a creative way to create the educational video. The students were engaged and learned so much. They were given the freedom to make choices and were allowed to prove their learning in a creative way.
The other project that I loved was the Career Mentor project. This was an ongoing project throughout the entire semester. During the first week of classes, students would let me know what type of career they were most interested in. Using that information, I matched them up with a professional from our community that would become their Career Mentor. Each week the student would email their mentor questions that they came up with about the topics we were discussing in class. The mentors then would email them their responses and we would use those to drive our classroom discussions. Towards the end of the semester each student went to spend a half day with their mentor and then their final was to create a multimedia presentation about their experiences. Again, the students learned so much and made real world connections to the things that we were learning in class. They were given ownership of their learning and enjoyed the "grown up" opportunities to communicate and interact with professionals in our community.
These are the types of learning experiences that I want classrooms to be filled with. When the correct technology is in place, students shouldn't be hindered by the buildings that they are in. They should be collecting information, communicating it to the outside world, and collaborating with others to become better.
While I am proud of what I did, I know there is still a long way to go. And in my current role, my focus has to be on helping others create these types of experiences for their students. So my goal is to start giving more concrete examples to my teachers. We have talked about the SAMR model, but I'm not sure they really understand what it looks like in their classrooms. We are nearing the end of our first year with the 1:1 technology, so we need to be moving forward at a steady pace.
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