What are the "affordances" and "constraints" of the technology? In other words, what does the technology allow us to do or prevent us from doing? The answers to this question might be "messy."
Skype and iChat allow us to communicate with others "face to face" online. Both are free services and allow for a lot of different types of usage. Although it is great that you can use it for so many things, this might be a downfall of the technology as well. If students use this to socialize, they might not want to use it for educational purposes. It may also be distracting using all the different tools available. I actually found myself distracted in class on Thursday when using iChat. I ended up playing around with the technology at first because I was unfamiliar with it. Students in our classrooms can find themselves in that situation as well.
What new skills do we need to teach students?
Students will first need to learn how to use iChat and/or Skype to communicate with others. They will then need to learn the different types of tools available other than just talking with another person. A great way to do this would be to show the students how to communicate with another person, but then allowing them time to discover the different tools available themselves. In addition to this, we need to teach the students expectations of using this technology and what we expect from them.
What will I need to do differently in terms of how I teach in the classroom? How will teaching and learning look different?
Because it involves communicating with others, I would have to coordinate with another classroom or another person as to what is going to be taught and what the students should discuss with each other. Teaching in this case will be more constructivist. I would provide the students with some basic content knowledge, but they will discover more by communicating with others different. Learning in this case will be done on the computer and through discussion rather than through a typical lecture. Something that I will need to do especially is ensure the students are on task.
How does the technology help me to foster creativity, innovation and some of the other 21st century skills?
What are some ways I can use this technology in my classroom?
This technology will help me foster creativity and innovation by allowing students the freedom to discover things on their own. It allows them to work with a wide array of individuals from all over the world without leaving their computer. This presents students a unique opportunity to do communicate with individuals and this communication can serve as primary sources in education.
I can use this technology in my classroom by communicating with students who are absent, either for a short period of time or a long period of time. This would be great to use for peer tutoring with other students around the world. It also allows for more constructivist type lessons which are difficult to develop in mathematics classrooms. I would also possibly be able to teach an entire class via Skype or iChat. Dr. Hartshorn taught my Higher Geometry class once last year via Skype while he was in California. Most of our work was done on Geometer's Sketchpad. If he had used iChat, he could have connected our screens so we could see what exactly he was doing on Sketchpad. Although it wasn't a perfect class, it showed me that this type of technology can be used in the classroom.
This helps foster 21st century skills because more and more communication is done online rather than face to face.
Nice job of answering all of the questions. So let's say that your principal has asked all teachers to incorporate new communication tools in their classroom - communication in the 21st century is after all different now that it was even 5 years ago. You know something about iChat and Skype. How would you incorporate new communication skills through Skype in your math class? How would you think out of the box to effectively incorporate this tool and develop communication skills in your students?
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