Blog: 18-19
Morgan Kueter:
I am a first year science teacher at Fossil Ridge School. This blog is designed to archive my struggles and successes as I implement new technology into my classroom.
I am a first year science teacher at Fossil Ridge School. This blog is designed to archive my struggles and successes as I implement new technology into my classroom.
The tech tool that I will be analyzing using a facilitator lens is Flipgrid. I have used this phone and computer application twice times in class and it has allowed students to facilitate their own learning and to be personally creative. We used this tool first to create lab safety music videos at the beginning of the school year. I first showed the students a parody music video about lab safety and then encouraged students to create their own skits, music videos, or safety demo that would then be shared with the class. Students most recently created a promotional video/ advertisement for a nutritional bar that they design using their understanding of macromolecules. These videos were then shared with the class as a commercial.
Using this app is user friendly for students because it prompts students through each step in the process and requires only a basic understanding of using the camera feature on either their computer or their laptop. It also directly sends the video to my computer interface, so that I can play the videos for the whole class easily from my computer. This fulfills the facilitator ISTE standards 6b and 6d. The 6b standard is the students will be able to “Manage the use of technology and students learning strategies in digital platforms, virtual environments, hands-on makerspaces or in the field”. The ISTE standard is the students will be able to “Model and nurture creativity and creative expression to communicate ideas, knowledge, or connections”. This method of creating mini commercials gave students the opportunity to be creative and to take personal ownership of their creative real-world application. Students became facilitators of their own experience. This app allows students to start and stop the recording as often as needed, so that they can move and reset new environments/ situations throughout their video advertisement. Some of the struggles with using this program is that it only worked on the student’s phones once they downloaded the app, and because of computer settings on the school computers the students could only access the camera feature if the program was used through internet explorer. The video can also only last a total of ninety seconds. Since dealing with this time struggle multiple teachers at my school have showed me that once an account is purchased by the teacher they can change the amount of time the video can last. In the article “Technology alone won’t transform teacher to facilitator” they claim that educational practices can be improved to reach all students by implementing different forms of technology. These technologies used must however be incorporated in a way that enhances student’s learning experience rather than detracts and cause frustration. I found in the article that they rarely specified the struggles related to time, funding, and class sizes. I have found that since most students have access to a phone or a computer and this is a free application that can be used to enhance student experience. Since this is a free app for students and teachers, as well it does not take a lot of time reteaching because the app is similar to the camera feature on most phones. This also incorporated a real application to this assignment that would not have been available without this feature. The article described to role of a teacher as that one of a ring mast who sets up the environment and activities for students to learn and grow on their own. I believe that through the use of this applications, Flipgrid, I became a facilitator, or ring master, to student learning rather than providing direct instruction for learning.
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