Technology in My Classroom

A goal I have on my own learning around classroom technology this session is
learning how to build websites and how to use Google Docs.

A personal fulfillment goal I have inside the classroom this session is to bring
advanced technology platforms from this class into my classroom.

An outside personal fulfillment goal is to use external advanced technology resources available to teachers to improve my classroom

How I use technology as an educator

        I created a power point using Canva and attached I-pages to it which can be inter-active with students. Canva allows power point to attach movies, you tube clips, and inter-active worksheets that students can work on. Students find Canva user friendly. Students can manipulate work, responses, and assignments easily.

It is worth it using Canva technology for the fact that Canva has so many technological features to it that teachers can incorporate into their presentations. 

        Applying Canva meets the ISTE standard for educators 2.5.b. Design Authentic Learning Activities. It helps me as an educator to design authentic learning activities that incorporate different type of technology to advance student outcomes and develop opportunities for students to apply their knowledge. Canva has so many technological features to it that I can incorporate into their presentations. As we also use Apple devices in school, the Canva tool can support learning working together with Apple products such as I-Movie, Pages, Keynote, and Free Form. It could not be a waste of time due to Canva and I-applications woking hand-in-hand with one another and the fact that both concepts are simple to utilize and operate. It really saves my planning time, and makes each period class goes smoothly.

How I Teach About Technology

In the new school year, I will have my students to learn science with using these two technology in my classroom.  Students will use these technology tools to meet science learning objective/standard/goal. 

        One technology is to use the interactive simulation website PhET Labs.  This tool will effectively make abstract or complex scientific concepts more accessible to students. When I looked through its website, I saw that PhET simulations increase student engagement by allowing students to manipulate variables and immediately see outcomes. It is especially beneficial in teaching topics that are hard to visualize, such as Atomic structure, Electricity and magnetism, Energy transfer etc. I struggled with teaching magnetism last school year. After I learned about this website,  I think I will be able to use it to create inquiry-based learning lessons for my students to explore scientific relationships and to understand the concept better. Its visual simulations support students with learning disabilities
and language learners. Many PhET simulations are screen-reader accessible, and it provides multiple languages to support ELLs understanding scientific concepts without needing advanced English fluency. This learning experience aligns with the ISTE Standard 1.4 Innovative Designer.

        Using  the PhET Labs promotes inquiry-based learning. Students manipulate variables and observe real-time outcomes, promoting scientific thinking, encouraging "what if?" questioning, hypothesis testing, and exploration. For example, in a circuit simulation, students can build their own electric circuits and test how bulbs light up based on wire placement and voltage. The challenges might be students have poor digital behaviors, for instance copying or deleting others' ideas, inappropriate comments which require teacher to oversight the teachable moments. 

How My Students Learn With Technology

        1. Spotify for Creators (https://creators.spotify.com/) is one technology that caught my eyes and I will use it. Students have to record podcasts creating episodes, then they can edit and upload their recordings to the given app. I believe it is a very fun way to engage students to learn. Our students are the digital generation, they want to use their smartphones and devices all the time. With this technology, students can participate in explaining information to their target audience (students or teachers) in a modern digital way. In my school, we have school wide morning digital media news. Students will be encouraged to create their own work and send their work to the digital media group to showcase on daily announcements. It will be fun for students. This learning experience aligns with the ISTE Standard 1.6 Creative Communicator.

        2. My students will develop digital citizenship using MindMeister.com (https://www.mindmeister.com/) through a collaborative mind map on responsible online behavior.

        For example, we will have a discussion activity about “What Does It Mean to Be a Responsible Digital Citizen?” Students will use SAMR model on Mind Meister website, to redefinition, Augmentation, Modification and Substitution. 

The learning scenario will be:

• Students work in small groups to create a shared mind map on MindMeister.

• Each branch of the map focuses on one aspect of digital citizenship (e.g., online safety, respecting others' content, cyberbullying, digital footprint, ethical tech use).

• Students add examples, images, links, or definitions in real time.

• They must cite sources and comment on each other’s contributions respectfully.

        This activity aligns ISTE standard 1.1 Empowered Learner for students. Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences.

        Using technology benefits my students by contributing ideas in real time, fostering peer interaction, practicing navigating a collaborative digital platform, using tools to add links, images, and notes, which strengthens digital fluency.  The challenges can be leading to off-task behavior if this digital tool becomes more of a distraction than a support. For my ELL students, I can see that using this tools to organize information in English could be overwhelming for them because of too many simultaneous edits or ideas can make the mind map feel cluttered or hard to follow.

        I created the following mind map in this course to support student learning with technology.

How I Engage Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy with Technology

         I engage cultural sustaining pedagogy with technology for students to explore the diversity of names and traditions people in different countries use to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and consider how we can be more inclusive in marking this holiday. Students will be using a language learning tool LingQ (https://www.lingq.com) to learn about greeting expressions and blessing words in different languages, for instance in Chinese Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, or Korean etc. Students will be able to learn designing Asian paper cutting through the website Cricut Design Space (https://design.cricut.com/). It will be more engaging if teachers provide a couple of cricut machines for student groups to use, for example, students can design the Zodiac animals on the website, and make it with the Cricut machine.

        I will teach students digital-to-physical workflow, have students design digitally, then print and cut by hand. I incorporate symmetry and geometry units, and cultural crafts exploring Chinese paper cutting. The technology will be used such as Silhouette Cameo / Portrait, Cricut Maker / Explore, Laser cutters (e.g., Glowforge) for precise paper or card stock cutting in maker spaces, and online designing website/apps on IOS system.

        When teaching a Lunar New Year 2025 lesson about diversity and inclusion using digital tools, it will align it with the following ISTE Standards for Students to ensure it’s both tech-rich and student-centered:

1.2 Digital Citizen

• Cultural Awareness: They learn about etiquette, representation, and the global history of Lunar New Year celebrations.

• Creating Artifacts: They synthesize this information into projects like infographics, annotated maps, or multimedia slideshows.

1.7 Global Collaborator

• Working Across Cultures: Students partner in groups to explore different Lunar New Year celebrations (e.g., Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean).
• Sharing to Broader Audiences: They might share projects online (e.g., Padlet or Flipgrid) or participate in virtual pen-pal exchanges.

        This lesson/activity benefits students to become learners who are able to set goals and select proper tools to research Lunar New Year traditions. They learn about etiquette, representation, and the global history of Lunar New Year celebrations. The challenges could be cultural selected and subject selected. Some of the students have bias to the other cultures will not be interested into this activity. Without the interests and motivation, students will exclude themselves when learning to be a global learner and communicator.