In this digital age, teachers and students alike are using mobile devices and other technology to teach and to learn. This course is designed for the classroom teacher who is looking for an introduction to the technology available to enhance teaching. First you’ll learn about ways social media can help you improve your practice and create a personal learning network. Then collaboration tools that can be used for planning or delivering lessons will be shown. Learn about mobile apps that engage students with learning and digital storytelling tools that allow them to show what they’ve learned. Finally, ways to teach students about digital literacy and citizenship will be presented.

Course Objectives

• Evaluate best practices for using social media to promote improvement in teacher practice.
• Analyze how to use resources (people) online to tailor instruction.
• Use social media to find relevant new connections, conversations, and resources.
• Analyze the correlation between reflection and improvement in teacher practice.
• Formalize a plan to use technological tools to aid reflection of your current practice on a regular basis.
• Examine educators’ blogs for signs of reflection.
• Analyze methods for using technological tools to improve collaboration, both qualitatively and for ease of use.
• Evaluate collaboration tools and techniques to determine the best use cases for teachers and students.
• Use collaboration software with your students.
• Examine methods for letting students use technology to interact with each other, the teacher, and the lesson.
• Understand how to use technology tools to augment lesson activities specifically for increasing engagement and interaction.
• Judge the effectiveness of demonstrating mastery through varied media (text, pictures, movies, music, etc.).
• Analyze the strengths and weakness of various media in terms of communicating information thoroughly and effectively.
• Create a digital story to use as a model or as part of a lesson.
• Infer whether specific information online is most likely true or false based on a number of factors, including but not limited to: writer authority, bias, relevance, timeliness, support, and linguistic style.
• Apply proper digital literacy techniques when doing professional research and when teaching students to conduct research.

Syllabus

(ASCD PD Online course, 2016) Self-paced asynchronous online course. Upon completion, learners will be awarded an ASCD Certificate worth up to 20 Clock Hours.