As a second year teacher, I find myself learning
something new every day. My hope is that each lesson I learn will take me one
step closer to being the best teacher I can be. I recently had the opportunity
to attend the Midwest Education Technology Conference. Having this opportunity
opened my eyes to all of the ways I can help prepare my students for the future
by utilizing the tools they have now. As teachers, we should not be teaching
students for our past, but rather for their future. This conference gave me the
inspiration to be that kind of teacher.
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Audience—the dictionary defines this word as assembled spectators; why then have we created the habit of giving students an audience
of one to share their work with? When the audience for a produced piece of
work is one person (the classroom teacher), it’s possible that the motivation
is predominately the grade. When students are able to share with the class,
school, or community, I believe that motivation to produce quality work
rises. So why stop there? We have the
capabilities to share student work with the world. The possibilities are
limitless. I can just imagine how many students would begin to take time
editing and revising their writing knowing that people in other cities,
towns, states, and countries have the capability of seeing what they’ve
created. During METC the simple act of commenting on a student blog post, and
the power that those comments hold, was discussed. Students need feedback,
and what better way than to give them the chance to receive it from endless
sources?
How? One of the speakers made a joke about the
majority of society’s opinion about the internet. It is not the scary,
threatening environment many people think that it is. As long as we are safe,
conscious, and mindfully monitoring what, where, and how our students post,
the internet is a safe platform to share work. Hearing from actual classroom
teachers at the sessions at METC, I learned that growth will not occur if I
am too scared to try new things. Using platforms such as YouTube and blogs seem
intimidating and possibly controversial, but where would our society be if no
one ever took risks? These kinds of discussions were a wake-up call for me.
If I don’t have the motivation and confidence to put my students’ work out
there, why should they want to share their work? It’s our job as teachers to
inspire and use the tools that we have to not only make what we are currently
doing better, but to create something completely new that we could not create
without that tool. That’s where technology comes into play.
Like it or not, social media is a way of life
now. Kids literally have a cyber-self. So if our students are spending so
much of their precious time online, why don’t we as teachers show them how to
do it effectively? It’s our job to not only teach standards, but to teach
students how to succeed in life. Representing oneself online is a skill that
needs to be taught. When we give students the opportunity to share quality
work online, and they receive constructive or positive feedback, we are
showing them how to make social media work for them.
So let’s do it, inspire students to create, and
motivate the quality of work by giving them unending outlets to share.
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