5-hour Field Experience
Observations
Observer Questions
· What types of technology were the K-12 students using throughout your field experience observation?
- Mimeo Votes- used to track students answers and understanding of the lesson.
- Tablets- when students were done with their assignment they worked on a site called “MobyMax”.
· Did students appear to be more or less engaged in the lesson content while using technology?
- More engaged- they had to really pay attention and stay with the teacher to use the votes and answer questions correctly along with classmates. Using the votes made everyone more involved.
· What was the teacher doing while the students used the technology?
- The teacher explained a concept using her mimeo pad and then a question with pictures would pop up on the overhead and they had to answer using the votes.
- They are able to automatically see the results and how many students answered correctly or not with a visual pie chart, the students would encourage each other to get it right for the next question.
· What pros and cons did you observe related to the use of technology in the classroom?
- Pro- all students were involved and since they were able to see the results automatically on the pie chart they wanted to get everyone to answer the question correctly so they encouraged one another to pay attention and it helped those falling behind to stay with the class and learn the concept together.
- Con- some of these students cannot handle having any distractions on their desk while the teacher is talking and explaining, the teacher had to ask one student to put their vote on the floor until it was time to answer the next question.
Teacher Questions
· What are the benefits to students using technology in the classroom?
- It keeps their interest and gives them immediate feedback. It also prepares them for real life situations where they will use technology all the time in the future.
· What are the disadvantages for student use of technology?
- They have one more thing to fidget with while I am teaching.
· What is your favorite classroom technology? Why?
- Tablets, I can have them go to so many different websites and do so many different things.
Students use the Mimeo votes to answer the question on the projector. The teacher has the Mimeo pad in her hand which is the technology tool she uses to navigate through the lesson plan.
As a class they discuss what is the correct answer and the teacher reveals the correct answer.
All the students get to see if everyone got the answer correct or not in pie chart form, in this chart only two students answered incorrect. They then encourage one another to get the correct answer next time.