PDP Goal 1
In the previous semester, I had used technology to teach my students, in which I had used the projector and iPads for displaying pictures, videos, presentations, educational games and other visual resources. Therefore, for this semester I want to improve my strategies in using the technology, as I want to plan a more interesting lesson for the students and because we had a workshop in the begging of this semester about the useful programs and tools that we can use in the classroom. Such as, Voki which is a tool that helps in creating a talking character as I can use it in an activity to explain the rules for the students. Moreover, I have always been interested in technology and in how I can develop my skills in it, so I think that this is a great chance for me to develop my skills in using the technology.
Nowadays using technology in the classroom is essential as it one of the modern teaching strategies and its support in developing the UAE education to be one of the best countries in education. Implementing this goal will support me as a teacher to develop my skills in integrating technology in the classroom, which can help in developing my teaching skill as I will be using different tools to explain and deliver the content of the lesson well. Huneycutt discussed that, using technology in the classroom can make the students concentrate more and longer in the lesson, also it let the students explore by themselves and when they explore they would be learning more than just watching the teacher doing it; another thing is that using it in the lesson can make them ready for the future because now that we are in 21st century where we can find technology everywhere and in most of the jobs (2013). Furthermore, as a teacher, I would be able to check the students understanding and assess them using the technology.
Planning for Learning
Implementing and Managing Learning
Monitoring, Assessment and Evaluation
Critical Reflection
This competence is linked to this goal in which I will be planning to use technology in the classroom with my MST. Also, I would include that in my lesson plans, and I would plan to use the tools in the lessons for the students so that they can learn from it.
This competence also linked to this goal because using technology is a teaching and learning techniques that would engage and encourage the students to learn in the classroom.
This competence is linked to this goal because I will assess the students learning by using technology which will be a formative assessment to check their understanding in the lesson which is essential for their learning to have a better understanding, by asking questions as the will watch and listen.
This competence is linked to this goal, in which I would reflect on the progress for this goal by making notes about how is the class is going and how effective are my skills are on the students learning. Also, I will record what I have developed and gain from working on it and about the things I will discover while working on this goal.
Week 1
In this week, I started working on this goal by discussing with my MST about the strategies that I can use in the classroom, and I told my MST about the tools that I plan in the classroom which is; Voki, Tellagami, PowToon, and Emaze. Moreover, I told her about the use of each tool, and she told me that they are good tools to use for the students in the class. After explaining all of that to her, she told me that it would be good if I used them but the problem is the internet connection as some of the programs needs it, so we should find some solutions for this problem and one of the solutions we had is to do the lesson in another classroom that has an internet access. At the end of this week, we discussed that we could include these tools in some of the lessons as it will be hard for us to move to the other classroom each time we have a lesson.
Week 3
In this week, I had already started using one of these tools which are Voki, in which I would use it for the listening activity for the students to hear. The listening activity that I gave the students was to give each student a paper that contains four questions in which they should listen and circle the correct verb. For example; I am going to stay/ play basketball, as the focus of the lesson was to use going to + verb. After doing the activity, I saw the students’ answers, and I noticed that most of the students answered as they said that using Voki was clear for them more than the audio they usually hear. Moreover, I kept using it to help the students in developing their listening skills, my MST told me that it a good strategy to help and engage the student in the lesson as it has a clear voice and a character that would attract the student to look and focus on the listening. Also, my MCT told that it was a nice way to play the listening to the students and it was a good method as I will put any materials that I want the students to listen to.
Week 6
In this week, I started to use Emaze as a replacement for the PowerPoint. I had used the Emaze to introduce the lesson, key vocabulary and expressions, and the activities of the lessons. Before using Emaze I was using the PowerPoint, in which my MCT told it a good way to integrate the technology into the class as it will help me in teaching and using more developed teaching strategies, and for the students to understand the lesson and to have a clear instructions and explanations of each phase and activity of the lesson. The reason to why I used the Emaze rather than the PowerPoint is that Emaze has an attractive way of displaying the slide with the ability to add and edit may things that would help me in teaching, so I wanted to use to engaged the students in the lesson. Furthermore, I noticed that the students liked it and it would attract them, and they were focused on the lesson as they participated in it.
Week 7
Overall, using these strategies supported me in scaffolding the student in learning as it helped in developing their English language skills. As it helped the students to be more focused and it would let them get used to using the technology as it one of the 21st-century skills to prepare them for the future (reference). Finally, during these weeks of using the technology in the class I was able to assess the students learning and their level in listening, speaking, reading and writing. In my opinion, I think that I had achieved 90% of this goal, as I was able to use most of these tools except the Tellegami and the PowToon tools as their websites showed me that I had to pay to continue with the edits or to add a voice from the website itself. Neither less, working on this goal gave me the opportunity to develop my strategies in technology and to use new tools that can help me in teaching and in having an interesting lesson to engage and involve the student in it.
In this phase, I used Voki for the listening activity with a handout, in which they had to circle the correct answer after hearing the recorder. My MCT liked this activity and said that it a good tool for the students to develop their listening skills.
This is a sample of the students work during the Voki listening activity.
In this phase, I used Voki for the listening activity with a handout, in which they had to circle the correct answer after hearing the recorder. My MCT liked this activity and said that it a good tool for the students to develop their listening skills.
This is a sample of using Emaze in my lessons. I think that it was a good experience as I used a different presentation tool for the students as it a 3D presentation and I taught all the lesson phases using this tool.
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Huneycutt, T. (2013, October 8). Technology in the Classroom: The Benefits of Blended Learning. Retrieved September 6, 2016, from National Math: http://www.nms.org/Blog/TabId/58/PostId/188/technology-in-the-classroom-the-benefits-of-b
