Teaching with Technology

This course was such a great joy for me! Ideas on integrating technology beyond the ordinary were amazing. In a world that is increasingly digital, bringing more to the classroom than "surfing the web" is imperative as some "surveys suggest that school is often the place where those who are less privileged have their primary access to the Internet" (Lenhart, Simon, and Graziano, 2001). The CAST Lesson Builder is such an innovative tool that really helps teachers reach all of the learners in their classroom through the Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Many of my own beliefs about how students learn were affirmed through this course, and new ways to achieve success in teaching to students needs were presented. "UDL actualizes the opportunities inherent in two great challenges facing today's educators: the challenge of learner diversity and the challenge of high standards" (Rose and Meyer, 2002).
Immediately after learning about UDL, I began to try little ways of incorporating the concepts more into my own teaching and sharing my ideas, successes and failures with my colleagues. One of the greatest ways of collaborating I found was actually utilizing Google docs as a means to share work with others. The group of gentlemen that I worked with throughout this course, and many others that followed, were very helpful in their feedback as to what would work and what would not in a regular setting versus the ideal setting that we learn in. As a learner, I tend to look at everything from the ideal perspective, and sometimes forget that ideal isn't what is. My collaborators helped bring me to reality as needed and really helped me grow in my own ways of thinking.
I have moved beyond the basics of computer use and with the help of different tools like the CAST Lesson Builder and Book Builder, I have found different ways to present to my students and also get feedback from them by engaging them more in their own learning. In the means of assessment, utilizing UDL would be ideal as tests could come in two formats: "one presents the problems on paper; the other presents the porblems on a computer screen and gives test-takers the option of hearing the words read aloud through text-to-speech" (Rose and Meyer, 2002). The idea of this is wonderful and would be easy to put together using Book Builder, but is this possible/ acceptable if students can't have this option for a high stakes test like TAKS? Until the state reaches this stage of technology availability, this may not become a possibility for some time.

References

Lenhart, A., Simon, M., and Graziano, M. (2001). The Internet and Education: Findings of the Pew Internet & AMerican Life Project. Washington, D.C.: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Rose, D. and Meyer, A. (2002). Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age. ASCD.