Project Tomorrow Reflection

The article about mobile devices and social media was of interest to me because I want to be able to implement them into my classroom since students are using them already anyways. The article mentioned how we can personalize learning by using devices that many students have already. We can use the mobile devices to increase student engagement and teacher productivity. I think that we need to find a way to use students phones in a productive way and not a distraction. Instead of constantly battling with students about the use of phones in the classroom we need top find ways to incorporate their devices into our lessons. What surprises me about these findings is how willing parents are to buy their kids mobile devices that will help with their education. What doesn’t surprise me is that so many people now have mobile devices. I will try to implement the use of mobile devices into some of my lessons. Today in class we let the students use their devices to work on a project. I thought it went well because we only have 4 laptops in the classroom but students were able to access information on their personal devices.

I watched the video “About Speak Up” and I think it is great that they are giving students the opportunity to speak up. I think it is important for administrators to know how students feel about certain issues so that they can make more informed decisions that will effect there students. It surprises me that so many students have participated in this program and that I had no idea it existed until last weeks presentation. It doesn’t surprise me that students like to participate and want their voices to be heard. I will use this information to try and incorporate technology into my classroom and will also find out if the school I work at participates in this program.

After looking at YouthTEACH2LEARN video and website I think the best way to start a program like this at the school where I work is to show the teachers and administrators the site so that they can see the benefits of such a program. I think there are many benefits to a program like this one. Some of the most important being that younger students get exposed to more science and math. Also more students will be exposed to teaching and might become great educators in the future.