FInal Project

Dropbox - This is the link to my dropbox with all my stuff for the project!
Class Blog - This is the link to my class blog I created! Please feel free to check it out, this is also where the flip snack is at for the project under the tab, in class.
Templates: Prezi, Powerpoint, and Flipsnack
Grade Level: 6
Subject: ESL Grammar

 Nets for Students: Net 1: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
 For this project students must use their creativity to create their project with both pictures and captions. They use either Prezi or Flipsnack, both of which are innovative products and processes using technology. 

Nets for Teachers: Design and Develop Digital-Age learning experiences and assessments
 Because this project uses the innovative technology of both the Prezi and Flipsnack programs it is a digital aged learning experience as well as assessment of their learning. 

Learning Standards Assessed:
 Communication
EALR: 3 The student uses communication skills and strategies to effectively present ideas and one’s self in a variety of situations
Component: 3.2 Uses media and other resources to support presentations
GLE: 3.2.1 Uses technology and resources to support or enhance a presentation

 EALR 3: The student uses communication skills and strategies to effectively present ideas and one's self in a variety of situations
Component: 3.3 Uses Effective delivery
GLE: 3.3.1 Applies skills and strategies for the delivery of effective oral communication and presentations.

 Writing:
EALR: 1. The student understands and uses a writing process. Component:
1.5 Publishes text to share with audience.
GLE: 1.5.1 Publishes in a format that is appropriate for specific audiences and purposes

EALR 2. the student writes in a variety of forms for different audiences and purposes
Component: 2.2 Writes for different purposes
GLE: 2.2.1 Demonstrates understanding of different purposes for writing

 Educational Technology:
EALR: 2. Digital Citizenship: Students demonstrate a clear understanding of technology systems and operations and practice safe, legal and ethical behavior.
Component: 2.3 Select and Use Applications: Use productivity tools and common applications effectively and constructively.
GLE: 2.3.2 Select and use online applications

 EALR 1. Integration: Students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems.
Component: 1.1 Innovate: Demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge and develop innovative products and processes using technology
GLE: 1.1.1 Generate ideas and create original works for personal and group expression using a variety of digital tools

End of Semester Reflection

I have learned a lot about technology this semester! For starters I think it is important to acknowledge how great tech is and how it has grown in the use of classrooms as well as students lives. There is so much I have learned that I did not know before. Learning how to use the promethean active board has been insanely helpful and enlightening. Also its good to know that there is a sweet spot in learning to use; it highlights both the benefit as well as the negative of evolving technology. 
I also really enjoyed learning about all the new classroom tools that are available online. I would never have thought to look for tools like glogster or wordle to incorporate more creativity and fun into the students learning and assignments. I especially loved story bird! I hope I am able to use this in a future class because I think it would promote so much growth in an ESL class. 


As for my nets for students and teachers: The one's I chose were
Student Net: 1.Communication and Collaboration

Teacher Net: 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments


I think all the tools that you showed us in the class help to meet these standards within the classroom. Storybird and glogster are great ways to teach kids communication and collaboration. Storybird could be used by having two classes or two students write a story back and forth. Blogster could be used between classes for students to show different things and share multicultural experiences. 


All the tools help me as a teacher design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments because all use some form of language creation which is essentially how I will measure my students success as ESL students. 


Thanks for a fun class!

Reflection 12

So I work at the Woodland Park Zoo as a cashier. A big trend with smartphones right now is the yelp app or foursquare. People use these apps as easy to check in, connect, and get free stuff. I think this is a very interesting idea because businesses are having to expand their marketing range to cover this type of advertising too. We give a free bobble head to people who check in for the first time. I think, if it was possible, to create something like this for the classroom could be really fun or at a larger level, for the school. After a certain amount of check ins at certain places in the school or in the classroom the student could get something cool like a candy bar or something. I don't know if the idea could really work but just a thought!

Comments!

Comment on Beth's Profile
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Comment on Adam's Profile
Comment on Josh's profile

Reflection #11

For my lesson in instructional design I used a great online tool called visual thesaurus. It was a super fun tool. It helps students see the connections between words and their possible means nothing literally and figuratively. I think this is a great tool for ESL students because it is hard to make the connection between some of the words in English that can have vastly different meanings. It will be fun to use for my student teaching next year and maybe in the future if I end up teaching somewhere where technology is available for use.

Reflection #10

So today in my instructional design class, one of my classmates, Lauryn was teaching us about the United Nations. She used some simple youtube videos to help explain some of the concepts of the lesson. I thought this was a good example of how technology can help with teaching material to students. The videos were simplified, but not childish and it made it easy to understand something complicated like what one branch of the UN does. I have also seen incorrect use, so I guess for me this helps me think about whether or not some technology is necessary. I need to examine the content of the video and ask does it aid in students learning or is it just a filler and detrimental to their learning experience?

Blog #14

So I looked at a couple of articles and read some of a book about the future of education in technology. A lot of what I read had to do with preparing teachers for a digital age. Many people seem to feel that the key to success in Education is proper training of teachers. If the teachers are not on board with the digital age it will create a conflict between them and their students who are tech savvy and want to use technology in every area of their lives.
Another interesting thought that I saw was about something called reverse instruction or flipping the classroom. This is where students watch or learn lecture material outside of the classroom which allows the teacher to be more of a resource when students come to class as well as to help cement the material. This was an interesting thought to me. I don't think teaching should be completing dominated by this, but having students prescreen some material is just like assigning reading as homework and then students can come to class and use the teachers knowledge as a resource.

Blog #13

Word - I use the autocorrect feature a lot. Occasionally I will use the provided templates for different things, such as the calendar to schedule the worship at my church. Sometimes I will use the table feature if I need it for a specific reason in my papers. Other than that I don't really use many features on Word, possibly because I choose not to spend the time figuring out what they are or could be.

Excel - I used to use Excel all the time for different math projects. One of my nanny families uses it to record the number of hours that I worked as well as the amount they should pay me. They use all the features that adds the tables together with a formula for the ending result amount.

Powerpoint - I basically use powerpoint when I have simple presentations to give. The backgrounds are nice features that are provided, but sometimes there is not enough variety. Another feature that I like is being able to print out the slides, specifically six to one page in order to conserve paper.

To have students learn how to use word, a good project would be to have them write a paragraph and then use different features to add things, such as the table tool, insert a graphic or picture, have page numbers, and/or a header and footer.

To have students learn how to use excel, you could connect it to a math assignment if possible where they have to make a table with certain given data as well as create a table that uses a formula.

To have students learn how to use powerpoint they could give a mini presentation they create. One way to make this more difficult is to tell them they must use a different feature on each page of the presentation such as a sound effect or slide transition.

Blog #12

Dr. Marzano Article

This article was really interesting because it made the point that students are using technology outside of the classroom to play games all the time, so why aren't we playing games in the classroom. I thought this was really interesting because I always use some version of a game in my lesson plans for the ESL students that I teach so that learning is more interesting then just reading vocabulary and saying definitions.

What I learned from this article is that teachers should include games in their teaching and it should help improve the classroom. It needs to be done correctly however in order to see positive results versus negative ones.

I think a great way to incorporate this idea is to design smart board presentations that are games. Jeopardy could be a great way to introduce new vocabulary to students or also a great way to review before a test.

Reflection #9

Many ESL students use personal dictionaries upon coming to the class. As I was thinking about this, I understand that it is a great tool, but then I wondered at what point do you cut the students off from using them or  just let them continue using them? They are helpful especially when they first come to the US. I think I would use the personal dictionaries as an addition to assignments, but make sure that on tests and exams it was clearly stated whether or not these students could use their personal electronic dictionaries.

Blog #11

Mrs. C's Class blog
My comment was sent to the teacher for approval:
This is so awesome! The iPad's will be a great way to spend the money! What other technology will you purchase with the money? There are some great apps on the iPad to help teach reading and writing, since you are a first grade class! :) Keep us updated!

From the blog, I learned that many classrooms communicate using blogging technology. Mrs. C posted an introduction to her classroom and many people had sent back their own response videos, including a class in Greece!

My comment contributed to the community of learners, because I am sure everyone wants to know what technology she is going to spend the money on besides iPads.

I had previously tried to comment on two other blogs, both hosted on edublogs which I liked much better but every time I tried to post a comment it said, oops, looks like you have already posted this. I think there must be a glitch in wordpress or the hosting website. It was very frustrating!

Reflection #8

In class last night for methods and materials with ESOL students we had a discussion about technology. At first we had to come up with our own definition, and then we read an extended version which included technology as an idea as well, not just as an electronic gadget. I thought this was really interesting. What really stuck out to me from the discussion we had about technology is that, it is still essential to be a good teacher. If you can use technology to enhance the lesson then you should, but still focus on being the best teacher you can be. We talked about how some teachers have fantastic technology and they think that it hides their poor teaching skill, when it really doesn't. So for me I reflected on I need to think about how and why am I using technology in my lessons? Am I using it to enhance the lesson or am I using it to hide an insecurity about my teaching?

Blog #10

Bloom's Taxonomy Article

Although this article was more related to family and consumer science it did focus on explaining and giving different examples of the levels in Bloom's taxonomy. It was also very helpful in explaining the differences between the original version of Bloom's taxonomy and the new revised version. The link I see between Bloom's Taxonomy and technology integration, is that technology is a great way for students to solve problems creatively as they would not have been able to before. Technology also gives students different ways to show application of knowledge and create in ways previously not available to them. Where as before students could present their information on posters, now they can do it with a powerpoint.

My Flipsnack

Technology Project Plan

Voice Recorder >>

Technology Project :
6th grade ESL
• Students are culminating the language form of the past tense
• To show they grasp the use, students will create a presentation about a previous vacation or family event
• There must be pictures and at least 3 sentences per picture
• The presentation will be made with either prezi or flipsnack
Projects will be displayed on class blog

Nets for Students:
Net 1: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology

Nets for Teachers:
Net 2: Design and Devolop Digital-Age learning experiences and asssessments

Learning Standards (There will be more):
Communication
EALR: 3 The student uses communication skills and strategies to effectively present ideas and one’s self in a variety of situations
Component: 3.2 Uses media and other resources to support presentations
GLE: 3.2.1 Uses technology and resources to support or enhance a presentation

Writing:

Reflection #7

As I was working in my els literacy classes and designing a pronunciation program for a younger student, I was lamenting to my teacher about the difficulty I have using the voice text feature on my phone and how it has shown me that I need to be better at pronouncing my words for clarity. She then had a thought bubble, "You could use that with your students!" I thought this would be a great way to integrate technology into a lesson and help students realize how other people are hearing them without necessarily using a video camera. Students could use a voice text application whether it be on a phone or something like it, I know there is one for the computer but I cannot remember the name, and speak into it and see if there are clear enough for the correct words to be written by the program.

Blog Assignment #9

The idea of having students record all their evidence of learning is very interesting. I think this could work very well for some subjects and not for others. Recording learning and discover would be a very handy tool in science classes, where it would easy to record the students doing the project and getting the "ah ha!" look on their face, and then having them explain what just happened. In classes, like English, where there are a lot of presentations, whether this be a book report or reading a writing entry, there "performances" could be recorded so that parents could see them during conferences, but also to help the students work on things like pronunciation or looking up at the audience. By allowing them to see themselves, they will be able to correct certain habits they might have when they speak in front of people. I disagree with getting rid of grades, mostly because I do not think it is possible. Even if you could get primary schools to get rid of grading, what are students supposed to send to colleges who rely on having students with high gpa's, not just an asb speech or a good math proof on video. The flip video could be added to already existing school system, but I don't think it could ever fully replace the way things are done now.

My comments

Comment on Arica's blog
Comment on Beth's blog
Comment on Jordan's blog
Comment on Lauryn's blog
Comment on Adam's blog
Comment on Josh's blog

Reflection #6

Recently for one of my ESL classes I had to do a curriculum review. It is very common for ESL curriculum to include an audio recording with the content so that while students are reading the dialogue in their book, they are also hearing it between two native English speakers. This helps their listening skills as well as their comprehension skills. I think this is one way to diversify the curriculum because usually teachers would just have students themselves read the dialogue. But in having someone else read it and they can listen to it, not only does it take some of the pressure off of them as language learners they are also able to hear correct pronunciation. I would definitely use this in my classroom. A fun variation would be to make my own records possibly with their other teachers so they could hear people they recognized.

Reflection #5

Last semester in my speech class we had to give a presentation with a visual aid, which for most people ended up being a powerpoint slideshow. It really irks me that teachers just give us an assignment with powerpoint as a visual aid because I think most people are not taught how to do them correctly. In high school and middle school no one ever corrected students and said these are to enhance your presentation, not have every single thing you are going to say on them. I think there might be a place for powerpoint in the classroom, but only minimally. For an ESL class this could be helpful for taking notes because teachers tend to talk a lot faster then they can understand, especially when they first start learning English. Visual representations of the language form could also be provided for added clarity.

Reflection #4

My history teacher Panapto's (records) our class everyday so that one of our student's can take the class from home because of difficult situations. This also allows students who miss class to make up the class and notes that they missed. Panapto is a great way for students to go back and review the lessons as well as check their notes and take extra notes. As a teacher I think Panapto definitely has a positive and a negative, it helps students who need to go back when taking notes, or in difficult situations, but allows them to skip class. As a teacher, Panapto would be great if I had to miss class or wanted to record material for students to work on listening skills or pronunciation, so they had a good example of what a native English speaker would sound like.

Reflection 3

One of my teachers used you tubes to demonstrate the various levels of els speakers. This was very helpful because we were able to listen to their speech and then take a guess at the level of speaker they are. As a student of learning how to teach this was very helpful experience. For students, you tubes could be assigned to the students so they could hear proper pronunciation of words by native english speakers, as well as they could hear different accents of native English speakers, such as speakers from the south.

Reflection #2

My ESL teacher uses the smart board all the time in our class. She uses it for taking notes, as well as demonstrating key activities with vocabulary and pronunciation. This is a great way to show how words break apart in syllables and also show where the stress is in the word. If I have this technology in my classroom it would be a good way to incorporate the students into the learning, by having the words pre-written on the word and having the students break it into syllables and then mark where the stress is instead of just having the students sit and answer hey can actually be involved in the board work.

My glog

Reflection #1

In class last week, I was taught how to use a document reader. I came from a school with old projectors, so I never had the chance to use a document reader.
Document readers are very good tools for teachers because they can act as a white board or projector in a way, but they allow the teacher to remain facing the class and still engaging them as learners.
I taught my first anticipatory set yesterday using the document camera and hope that it is a tool that I might have in a future classroom because it really was quite helpful to show students what I was doing on the worksheet but also to be able to still face them for classroom management.

Blog Assignment Week #8

http://www.funenglishgames.com/grammargames.html
This website has a lot of great ESL resources including games. The games would be a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom and also a way to engage the learners away from monotonous worksheets. I wouldn't only rely on these games, but I think they would be a good way to shake up the routine. Or they could be a consistent, end of the day "reward", because they are a little more fun, but students are still practicing skills. These games would be great on a smart or activboard so students could come up to the board and touch the screen to answer instead of just me asking them what the answer is and then checking to see if it's right.

Blog Assignment Week #7

So I couldn't find the heading "Blogs for Educators" on the class blog so I played around on google for a little bit looking for some blogs. I found this one
http://www.tcps.org/blogs/math/
which is a link to Ms. Hocks math classes.
On the blog itself, she posts copies of the students finished assignments that they did in class, as well as videos of them working on their projects. In the videos, you can also see that students are using netbooks to research data for their projects! I thought this was really neat, because when I did graphs we were given data, not able to find some data that might interest and engage us in the learning process more.
She also lets the class video record their definitions of things they are learning. It's a great way to engage the students not only in math, but with technology as well.
Her site is also a great resource for parents wondering what the students are doing in class!

Assignment 2 - Smartboard presentation

I am doing my smart board lesson on Spanish Adjectives. Here is the link to the original presentation: http://exchange.smarttech.com/details.html?id=0a80a24f-1bc5-44d1-b4bd-cf52d723f6c5

During my presentation I will be moving objects, popping balloons (I'm not sure if this feature has a name), and using the writing tool as well as the tool that you can draw arrows.

Teacher Net:
Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments - By developing an engaging presentation where students are learning and using technology for their learning they are engaging in digital age learning experiences.

Student Net:
Technology Operations and Concepts - Students will interact with the smart board using the touch tool to pop balloons, this shows they understand technology operations and concepts.

Blog Week 6

Genration IM
I really enjoyed reading the article. What really stuck out for me was all of the statistics about how much time children are spending plugged into technology.

 On a side note I find it interesting that as a society we are encouraging children to be less social together and be plugged into technology. Students would rather Skype or text than call or spend time with other people because at the same time they can be doing homework, facebooking, listening to music at the same time.

There were many programs/websites mentioned in the article that I had never thought of before or heard of. I like the idea of making students their own social networking sites for the safety but also because the students will feel included in the current fad.

In a science class, students could create their own wikis about a science topic. They would be split in tot groups with one topic and then could edit the group wiki together. Then students could learn from each others work.

Week 5 Blog Post

I was able to find research on the Promethean Activboards effect on a classroom of special needs students. The results were all positive. The Activboard helped increase student engagement, students contribution to discussions,and many more things relating to the classroom. Because the Activboard engages the students on many different levels they become more focused on the lesson. The Activboard was also helpful in allowing students who had trouble with fine motor skills to work on them more freely with the help of the stylus. The Activboard was a great tool for this classroom in order to help its participants become better students overall.

Is there an advantage to having the Activboard versus the Smartboard?

Promethean Activboards and Special Needs Students

Week 4 Blog Post

After our lesson with the smart board I learned many things, mostly because none of my teachers use the Smartboard and also because we didn't have them in my school district. The first thing I learned was about the pens, the eraser, and the touch screen. It was interesting to me and a little bit annoying that the tools had to be in the bar otherwise the user had to click the toolbar to use the tool that they wanted. It was also interesting to learn all the different features, such as being able to cover items and then remove the cover and also use flash and sound in the presentations.
One question I have is how to remove items that are covering answers. Is there a way to click on them and just have them disappear versus pulling them down or on another part of the screen?

Assignment #1 - Mock School Demographics

Washington Teacher Professional Certification

Portfolio of Evidence Assessment

School/Class Profile

Complete this profile to help scorers understand your school or class context.

Do not use any specific names. Secondary teachers should describe one class period.

Student Class Enrollment	Males:     13                                                  Females:9
Grade Level(s) in Your Class	7th
Subject(s) Taught	Reading, Writing
Demographics:
School Socio-Economic Status	_29.7___% of free and reduced lunch
School Location	___Urban     ____Suburban     __x_Rural
Describe relevant aspects of your School & Community that influence and/or impact teaching & learning. (Examples: curriculum, reform models, school focus, community partnerships, community support level)	Classroom Demographics: I have twenty-two students in my classroom, 13 boys and 9 girls. I have a diverse student population including 2 students with autism, 3 ESL and 1 ELL, and one student with an IEP for academics. The students come from mostly low to middle socioeconomic backgrounds. Our classroom is lucky enough to have two parent volunteers who come in and help once or twice a week in the class. Even though the area is a low to mid socioeconomic area we do have an abundance of technology available to our class including a document camera, Smart board, Smart table, Smart response systems, 16 netbooks, a flip video camera, and a digital camera. This technology allows our class to showcase creativity with technology in many of our assignments. School Demographics: Our school is located in Stanwood, and our district spans the Stanwood and Camano Island areas. The population of the Stanwood and Camano Area combined is 45,000 catering to families as well as retirees. The demographics of this area are highly diverse as there are many low, middle, and high socioeconomic families in the area. Because of this diversity in the population levies that are aimed towards running the school are usually passed. However any levies above and beyond this such as a levy for  technology generally have a hard time passing. Community Demographics: Although our school does not have a ton of money for technology we do encourage students to be as involved with their learning as much as possible. Most classes require at least one presentation with PowerPoint at the minimum. We also have tech clubs where students are taught many different things about computers and help with tech problems in the school. Teachers volunteer to lead these clubs and get involved with their students technology learning. Students are also required to take technology classes and learn about the many features that are offered such as Photoshop and specialty programs like it. Tech Standards for 7th Grade: In seventh grade students should be able to do many things with technology. Under the EALR of Integration where students use technology within all content areas to collaborate, communicate, generate innovative ideas, investigate and solve problems there are three components. Under component 1.1 which is Innovate, students should be able to generate ideas and create original works for personal and group expression using a variety of digital tools as well as use models and simulations to explore systems, identify trends and forecast possibilities. Under component 1.2 which is Collaborate, students should be able to communicate and collaborate to learn with others and develop cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with learners of many cultures. The third component under the EALR Integration is Investigate and Think Critically, which at grade seven includes being able to identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation and plan strategies to guide inquiry, locate and organize information from a variety of sources and media, analyze, synthesize and ethically use information to develop a solution, make informed decisions and report results, and use multiple processes and diverse perspectives to explore alternative solutions. Seventh graders also have a second EALR labeled Digital Citizenship which says that students should demonstrate a clear understanding of technology systems and operations and practice safe, legal and ethical behavior. Under the Digital Citizenship EALR there are four components. The first component is to practice safety, which includes practicing personal safety and practicing ethical and respectful behavior. The second component is Operate Systems, which includes developing skills to use technology effectively and using a variety of hardware to support learning. The third component is Select and Use Applications. Under this component students are expected to select and use common applications and select and use online applications. The fourth and final component under the Digital Citizenship EARL is Adapt and Change. The grade level expectation for this is for students to be able to formulate and synthesize new knowledge.
Classroom  Mobility *your classroom	__2__% of student turnover within the school year
Race/Ethnicity *your classroom	___1.5_% Black                                                __8.7__% Hispanic         __84.1__% White                                               ___.8_% American Indian  ___2.3_% Asian/Pacific Islander                         ___2.7% Multiracial
Spoken Languages *your classroom	__98__% English as a first language  __1.5__% Fluent in English as a second language  __.5__% English-language learner
Identified Special Student Needs (List any types of specific learning disabilities and/or gifted/talented students and the number of identified students ) *Your classroom	2 students with autism 3 EFL 1 ELL 1 IEP for academics

Week Three Blog Post

Marc Prensky's article was a very interesting read. He brings up many good points about the digital natives versus the digital immigrants. But my thought was should the digital immigrants be forced to change their methods so drastically. I'm not downgrading the value of technology in the classroom, but in society in general is that really what we want to happen; to have everything be evolved around technology? And really what does it say about us that students are saying I have to power down at school, your parents didn't force you to go outside and play?! I understand that technology is valuable and has helped us do many things in many areas including education, but I don't think we should accommodate students as much as Marc Prensky suggested. Think about it. Not all professions are technology involved, and for those people how valuable is doing everything with technology or encouraging them to become more "plugged in". I do think it has a place in the classroom, but I also believe facilitating other non related technology curriculum is valuable too.

Blog Assignment: Week 2 - Classroom Scenario

Classroom Scenario: 22 students, 2 with autism, 3 ELL, one non-English speaker, 1 IEP for academics. Available tech: Document camera, Smartboard, Smart Table, Smart response systems, 16 netbooks, Flip video camera, digital camera.

Student Net: 1.Communication and Collaboration

Teacher Net: 2. Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments

Spring 2012 Class Blogs

Joshua Wenzek
Lauryn Ernster
Beth Ross
Arica Johnson
Adam Loga
Jordyn Wilson
Monica Adair

Blog Assignment: Week 1

My decision to become a teacher came very slowly for me. I actually started college wanting to go into business or accounting. My business classes were boring, so I started to think about people who were meaningful in my life and made an impact and that's when I remembered my teacher who had helped me with my friend. I now have many classes on my transcript that don't relate to teaching. In high school, I had a teacher who helped me address an issue with a friend and that's initially what started the idea of becoming a teacher. The school district I come from also had a a lot issues, such as drugs, suicide, and drinking. The teachers always seemed to be blind to the problems and I wanted to do something about that. And that is how I got into wanting to teach!

I am comfortable with pretty simple technology. I can use computers, iPads, iPods, and smartphones. On computers, I can figure out most things out given a little time. I have taken classes in the basic programs like powerpoint and excel. One thing I don't know that would be good to know would be how to use a smart board. Also how to use those lamps that act as projectors onto the screen.

Technology in education is very valuable. It is a great aid for teachers and also a great way to engage students as they become more technology based in communication. Teaching technology in the classroom also helps prepare students to go out into the world and thrive in a technological community.