Online Assignments

Like many Jr. High students, 7th graders at Goleta Valley Junior High become engaged immediately whenever a teacher mentions the word "Kahoot". I observed a scienc class using Kahoot to practice metric unit conversions. Questions generally followed the format "Convert 5cm to mm" and the answers contained numbers such as ".5mm, 50mm, 100mm, and 50cm." Some students who take so long to complete a unit conversion problem on paper were able to answer these questions correctly in very little time. What is it about Kahoot that makes students capable of thinking so much faster than when working with traditional pen and paper? I think a big contrinbutor to this increaed processing/problem-solving speed is the instant nature of technology. Students are used to working on computers where anythign they type can easily be deleted and rewritten. They are used to posting something on social media sites in just a couple of seconds and seeing results imemdiately. Everything seems to happen faster when technology is involved. In contrast, pencil and paper writing is more permanent and students may be hesitant to make mistakes that can't be immediately deleted or switched to a new screen. When Kahoot was used in class, each student was given his/her own iPad so whether or not students had their own smartphones was not an issue. This is an important point to consider when using technology in class.

I have also seen teachers assign homework to be completed on NEO for homework. Specifically, my cooperating teacher will assign homework in the form of short multiple choice quizzes with unlimited attempts. In this case, the emphasis is on making sure students receive instant feedback and can demonstrate that they are willing to take time to correct mistakes. NEO has also been used for a student discussion forum where students are asked to respond to a question with an original post as well as to read and respond to a classmate's post. When homework is assigned on NEO, my cooperating teacher is very aware of which students have computer/iPad/phone access away from class and which students may need extra help at school to access the assigment. Students are also given at least 2 nights to complete the homework in case internet access is difficult.

During lat week's science PLC I was involved in a discussion about the value of 1:1 devices in class and whether iPads or Chrome Books would be more useful for students. Among science teachers, there is a general consensus that whiel iPads are great for use of specific Apps, Chrome Books are much more valuable for creating original graphs as well as typing original Word and Excel documents. I certainly agree that Chrome Books might be more valuable because of the increased ability to "create" but it was interesting that 4 of 6 teachers then pulled out their iPads to review notes for the meeting.

My cooperating teacher regularly incorporates technology use in the classroom. He assigns online homework at least once a week and just gave a unit test on the computer through NEO. While I do understand that many standardized tests are now given on the computer and it is important to be able to perform well on both computer and paper formats, I wonder how scored would have compared with paper tests. Overall, I support the use of technology in the classroom and I think it is important to continue to discover new tools as a teacher as well as encourage students to bring in new resources to share.