Reading reflection #6

1. Technology tools can encourage students to be reflective and evaluate their own strengths in a few different ways. One way is through blogging, blogs offer students space where they can reflect over time about what and even how they are learning. Another way is by using ProfilerPRO, this is an online survey tool that allows you to identify the learning characteristics of an individual. You are able to identify strengths, interests, weaknesses, you can use this information to help guide learning. Finally the online tools called Survey Monkey and Zoomerang allow you to set up online surveys. You can use the survey results to track trends and hep students see how their self-assessment compares to the larger group.

2. There are several ways to get your students minds ready for a project. Be sure to start by getting your students attention and giving the idea time to settle in their imaginations. Encourage students to explore and think about the topic and to discuss their ideas with friends and family for a couple days. Bring up the project just for a couple minutes each day to build excitement and to allow the students to discuss their interests with the whole class, you or even other classmates. It might be a good idea to even have a special visitor that has to do with the project come in the friday before you kick off the project. This will no only get the students pumped up for the project but provide them with great information. Plus, we all know that students love when we bring visitors into the classroom! 

3. Make sure students know the fundamentals and basics so they can have independence in their investigations for the project. Although this project is geared to be independent and student driven, it's important to provide students with knowledge they will need to guide them so they can successfully work individually. Create an activity for you students before the project kicks off designed to find out what they already know, what they don't know and what they hope to learn once the project is finished. This will provide your students with a sense of purpose. Always encourage deeper thinking/questioning, transfer "why" and "should" questions to "how" questions. Lastly, its a good idea to create a rubric for your students to preview before beginning the project. This will be a great roadmap of the project for you students to have and make it much more organized.

4. There are important steps for preparing your students for using technology. Before starting the project, think about what tools the students will need for the project and think about what skills will need to be taught to the students before setting them free to work independently. A fun and easy way to introduce students to new technology is by setting up a technology playground. Set up stations around the room and set students out to explore all the new technology, you'll be surprised what they can discover on their own! In the next couples days following, you should set aside time to demonstrate how the technology is properly used and what is used for. After a step by step demonstration is given, allow students time to work with the technology independently while you monitor and are available for questions. This will be good practice for when they are working independently. By introducing technology before hand, it will eliminate confusing and frustration and make the project flow the way it should! 

5. As teachers, inquiry should be in our classrooms on a daily basis. A great way to promote inquiry is by doing experiments with things you know your students are interested in. Have them predict what will happen and then reflect afterwards. Another great way to promote inquiry and deeper thinking in your classroom is by role playing. Role playing and experiments will get students in touch with what they know and what they don't know. Always encourage questions from your students! 

6. The topics from this chapter relate to our project because we are planning to have the students use technology to do research and also communicate with their epals in Japan! Now that we know how to prepare our students for not only using unfamiliar technology but to prepare them for the entire project, it will be really helpful when working on ours! It was also great to learn about how technology encourages students to reflect on their work, that will not only help with our project for this class, but in our future classrooms some day!