As I read through the course material for week 1 of course 4 I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions about the type of technology I use and where do I fall on the TPACK framework or SAMR model.  One reading that particularly caught my interests was Jeff Utecht’s blog post on evaluating our technology use in the classroom. I thought it would be worth my while to give myself a little evaluation.  Over the course of one 8 block cycle I kept a log of all the different ways that technology was being used in my classes.  Many of my classes are using technology in similar ways. Using Jeff’s evaluations questions I would say that most of the technology used in my classroom fall’s between “using technology to do old things in new ways” and “technology creating new and different learning experiences for the students”.

I would have to admit that most of what we are doing is probably closer to the “using technology to do old things in new ways” category.  Here are some examples from my classes.

1. A Daily Prezi: I keep a rather detailed prezi as a scope and sequence for all of my classes.  This is a nice little daily overview of what we will be doing for the period as well as outcomes.  I like to project this up for the period so that students can refer back to it as needed.  It is also a nice way for me to keep any videos, pictures or other information linked to the lesson right there with my scope and sequence. Giving the kids a daily overview of the class schedule and outcomes is nothing new but prezi has provided me with a better way of organizing large amounts of information as I move from class to class. I have yet to do this but prezi can also be shared online.  I have often wondered if it would be helpful to students to have access to my prezis so they can look back at what we covered or get a glimpse of what they missed when absent.
2. Google Slides Portfolio: New to my classroom this year are online portfolios.  Instead of using a portfolio website I have decided to use google slides.  The reason for this is that the student and I can share the slide presentation which makes is easy for me to comment and help edit. It’s also nicely organized through hapara. The third reason I like to use this format is so that I can embed all of my students portfolios onto my blog.  This has been a great way for students to view others work and furthermore for parents to view student work. Presentation is a very important part of any art class and this format has allowed me to take it to another level without always hanging work in the halls.  Here is an example of a student portfolio from my art Studio Class.

I could go on through my list of ways we are using technology in the classroom but I think I will stop there for now.  These two example stick out to me because they are being used on a daily basis. I would love to hear some of your thought on these practices.  Where do you think these practices lie on some of the models discussed in Course 4?  Do you have any ideas as to how they could be brought to the next level?  These are practices that I see myself continuing to implement and smooth out over the next year. I would love to hear your feedback.