1st ask yourself, as a teacher, the following essential questions:
- Is the use of technology enhancing conceptual understanding?
- Is the use of technology allowing you to work more efficiently?
- Is learning being differentiated with technology to meet each student where they are at?
If your answer to all of these is no…..STOP and unplug!
Make sure you have clearly decided your own answer to the following questions and that your students know where you stand. Try your best not to make exceptions, especially due the first month of school.
- What happens with phones when students enter your class?
- Can students leave class to print?
- Can students charge their tablets in class?
- Is social networking allowed in class? If so, for what purposes?
- How will students turn in work digitally? Do you have a specific way files should be named?
- Can students use their tablets/devices to take notes?
- Is tablet/device free time ok? If so, when and under what conditions?
- What are the ground rules and expectations when researching? (ask Kevin if you need help!)
- How do you expect students to give appropriate credit for digital sources including various forms of media?
Clear expectations and cues go along way. Some favorites are:
- Phone tower: have all students stack their phones in one designated location in the room. Alternatively you could use a box or a basket (aka the digital basket) to specifically mark where phones are to be placed when they are not actively being used as LEARNING tools.
- Lids down or flat whenever someone is talking to the whole group
- Access information for learning about the topic the group is focusing on….PERIOD!
- Use SmartSync to dynamically manage your class and differentiate!
- Unless you created the work, a citation must be present. (consider creative commons)
Additional Resources
One-to-One Computing and Classroom Management- Tech& Learning (August 1, 2007)
Keeping Students Engaged in a 1-to-1 Project Based Classroom– Janet Moeller-Abercrombie (Janruary 29, 2012)
Tech Tuesday 