Sometimes I think that my frustration with tech is that it's moving too slow. It feels like we are having growing pains. (Will it ever stop?) As a teacher, I think this can translate into tech tools, such as on-line reading and math programs, not being aligned to our more traditional paper book and workbook (Common Core aligned) curriculum. I'm using a patchwork of materials where the computer based programs are typically used to enrich our more traditional curriculum. The programs I use, such as Freckle, Lexia, Epic, Prodigy, and Xtra Math, for example, are supplementary. What we really focus on in our grade level scope and sequence planning meetings is still the textbook based learning. And this is ok. I think it's really good for there to be a balance between screen time and book/activity time. It just that sometimes I wish it were all integrated and planned out ahead of time so that I don't spend so much of my time figuring out what to use. So much of my job involves managing 22 kids and all the rest that goes along with it, I don't have time to be a curriculum designer. Sure, I'll plan how to deliver it and differentiate it, but to design lessons takes, for me at least, a huge amount of time. Also, we are expected to enter all grades into Illuminate, but this takes additional steps to integrate our paper tests into the digital system, such as filling out bubble sheets and taking pictures of them with our laptops. And then, the Smarter Balanced assessment never seems to really reflect what we are teaching anyway. The curriculum is still catching up with the test. Sometimes I think wouldn't it be great if, and this may sound a bit big-brothery, everything were streamlined into one big package? (Probably Pearson or McGraw Hill)... Our online, learner centered and instant feedback giving curriculum, that has all the 6C's figured out already across all curricular areas, would feed grades directly into Illuminate for parents to see, and would also automatically populate our report cards.... and ALSO be aligned in a smarter way to the Smarter Balanced Assessment? Some company could make a killing off of this idea. But then, of course, where would this leave us teachers? Would we turn into tech support? How would we teach kids about passion through our passions? How would we teach them how to search through our searching? How would we teach them it's ok to make mistakes through our mistakes? And then what would happen when a bigger company comes along with a better idea and makes everyone re-learn the entire system? Maybe this experience of fumbling through these technological changes is not such a bad thing after all. I think the very nature of education requires a constant dis-satisfaction with current ideas and practices and a constant striving for the next better thing. That's learning. Look how far we have come. The more diversity and freedom that happens here, the better. But, that other way would probably make my job a lot easier. The other reason the tech is moving too slow is because when I see the use for it, I want it now. For example, in relation to my big question, I want all my students to have cell phones. Now. And they don't. And they won't. But they neeeed them because I discovered this app called iNaturalist and played around with it last weekend down by the creek in downtown Santa Rosa. You point your camera at a plant or animal and in a few seconds it tells you what it is! Isn't that crazy? It knows what a mallard duck is. It knows what blackberries are. If it doesn't know exactly, then it gives you a few suggestions. If you want, you can pin the plant or animal onto the internationally used map/database of biodiversity around the world. Someone pinned one of the plants growing in my front yard! (Which I did not plant.) If my kids could use this tool they could create a database of some of the local flora and fauna in Calistoga, and then present on it. We can also do something like this on our field trips to Pepperwood. I think we can still do it, but it will be a bit different. Maybe I can get iPads and upload photos from those. Today, I took them down to the creek in Calistoga (headwaters of the Napa River) with their nature journals. They were so busy and excited looking for bugs under rocks that most of them didn't have/take the time to draw. We'll have to do it tomorrow morning, based on their memories of what they saw. But if they did have cameras, they could have captured those images quickly and find out with more accuracy, what the bug, or plant, was. After taking this nature journaling class I had this big idea that if kids observed nature carefully and slowly, they might appreciate it more. I still think this is true, but in today's context at least, it was not going to happen, with a few exceptions. I can better see how the use of tech might enhance this experience for all kids.
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AuthorJeremy Smith teaches third grade at Calistoga Elementary School. Archives
July 2020
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