Empowering Students Through Technology - Alan November Chapters 1-3

Technology is such a huge part of most peoples day-to-day that children are naturally comfortable with it because they are surrounded by it on such a regular basis. There have been plenty of times where a student of mine has asked me if I have used or seen a game/app/youtube video or have shown me how to do something on the iPad or computer with little to no effort. Their minds are engrossed in technology and I think it's important that our teaching begins to recognize this more and more.
In the book Empowering Students Through Technology Allan November begins by going into detail about how we need to educate our students on uses of the internet. There is so much out there for them to explore and learn, but they need to have an understanding of how to go about this using a critical thinkers mind. I thought one of the great elements of the first chapter was teaching the students about "mapping" the internet.

Meta-web information-understanding the structure of information on the internet.
Author-anyone can post information on the internet-look for creditability
Purpose-why is the information there, what is it's intended for?

It's with tools and ideas like these that we can teach our students how to use the internet efficiently and effectively. I think the earlier teachers start with these strategies the better off the students will be no matter where they when accessing technology.

November continued to discuss the importance of building relationship with people through technology. These relationships begin in the classroom where students can work in collaborative groups while completing certain activities and continue into the importance of expanding relationships continue between school and home as well as school to world connections. There are endless possibilities with technology and I'm finding with the proper instruction and direction you can certainly do a lot of this on your own - your students will thank you for it!

It is interesting to think of the different roles you can take when using technology with students. Some of the ideas that were discussed are those that have been brought up in the past, but are crucial to the continuing development of technology in our schools. One idea for instance was increasing communication between teachers and parents through use of technology. Being able to utilize technology to share student work as well as activities and events that are going on in the classroom and school are really important in keeping that line of communication open.

As we know technology will forever been evolving and developing into bigger and better things, I thought one idea that Alan November discuss in chapter 3 was a great idea of how to go through the learning process with some of your students.  Building your own classroom website might be quite the undertaking for many, however if you allow your students to begin the process and you work along side of them as an “publisher/editor in chief” you will probably learn just as much from your students as they are learning from you (November, P.49).

I felt as thought November summed it up well in figure 3.2 on page 56 of his book:

Technology can provide a means for:

·      Simplifying calculation-calculators and spreadsheets

·      Accessing information-the internet and e-mail correspondence with experts

·      Production data logs-probes and personal digital assistances (PDA’s)

·      Making long-distance people-to-people connections-telephone, fax, e-mail, videoconferencing, voice over IP

The above is a basic list of ways we can use technology for ourselves as well as with our students.