Blog Post #G

Technology is making it, in many ways, easier to educate our students. In Chapter 10 Promoting Success for All Students through Technology, it talked about how many different ways you can use technology to reach a limitless amount of students. Whether your students don't speak English very well, or you have a Deaf student in your classroom, technology today has given us an opportunity as educators to reach students whom we have not been able to reach in the past.

Through technology we can reach a more diverse group of students, and because of this we can inspire them to become life long learners. A huge issue in classrooms today is trying to make the curriculum relevant. "This issue is very important to diverse students, many of whom struggle in school when they do not find immediate connections between academic content and their own experiences (Maloy)." As educators we must make our curriculum relevant. We can use technology to do this for us. "Technology allows students to access newspapers from around the world, take virtual field trips to international locations, translate materials from one language to another, and communicate with teachers, students, and schools in other places.

Another great tool we have now is Google Translate. Throughout Elementary school I remember having friends come into my classroom who didn't know how to speak any English. I think back to those days and try to imagine if Google Translate existed back then we could've communicated so much better with one another. Now I know that if I ever have a student come into my class who doesn't speak any English I'll still be able to semi communicate with them through Google Translate, or any other translation tools.

Below I've included a Bitstrip I made about teaching to learning styles. I was inspired to make this after I read a passage in Chapter 10. "Teaching to include the learning styles of different students is the key to successful differentiated instruction. A differentiated math unit on probability, for example, might open with a choice of two experiences: student-written and -acted skits to introduce concepts, or a series of games that focus on probability using dice, spinners, or multiple choice. (Maloy)" 

Also I apologize for the larger than life Bitstrip, I was having trouble embedding and switching the codes. 



(Edward)

Although we can do so much now with educating we need to still realize we have limitations.
 I fear that we might start getting the idea that we can do anything as teachers, don't get me wrong, we can do so many great things! But again we must know our limitations. I already know it will be something I will have to keep in check, because if I try to cater to each students specific needs and learning styles I'll overwhelm myself. 

References

Edward, A (2015, October 18). How Do You Learn? Created with Bitstrips http://www.bitstrips.com/r/WDP0Z

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.