Week 7 discussion

Dr. Orey stated at the end of his video presentation (Laureate, 2000) “…get the kids engaged in learning…”. This is the reason I am working on my masters. How can I use technology to more effectively engage the students by having them become more active participants? I have found some of the courses in the Integrating Technology in The Classroom masters program to be very: informative, thoughtful, but without concrete guidance of how to implement it in the classroom so the students are using the technology and not teacher centered. I have worked with many colleagues who no amount of technology in the classroom is going to change their room to a student centered approach. I suppose you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Perhaps the best student centered ideas are ones we craft ourselves as we have had an opportunity to reflect on them and will be sure to implement them.

I enjoyed Dr. Orey’s example (rant) of the poor use of a smart boards, yet almost any tool, not just technology driven ones can be used ineffectively by the teacher as they lecture to the class. An example of a teacher driven instructional technology tool would be a classroom blog run by the teacher. You can take the same blog and have the students be the blogmasters, have them be responsible for choosing what information is entered, making value choices, and now you have a student centered learning tool where the students will be making connections in their mind on information they share as opposed to the teacher making mental connections.


Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2000). Managing behavior in the diverse classroom. Baltimore: Author.