For the past seven and a half weeks, I have
gone through a process of determining a need in my classroom and thinking of a way in which technology could provide a solution. I identified several needs in my room. One is to increase student engagement in learning, and another is to provide more opportunities for differentiated instruction. While I strive to achieve these needs in my classroom, I brainstormed ways to utilize technology in order to better meet them.
My plan focused on using a HyperDoc, a digital lesson that contains resources related to a certain topic, in order to meet these needs. After establishing this technology solution, I needed to assess the need, research the technology, design the lesson, and receive feedback from a colleague about my plan. I enjoyed the process, especially since I had to break up the proposal into these steps. By doing so, I was better able to really think through the plan to make sure I thought of everything in order to make it a successful solution. Going forward, I will use this same process to implement different technology plans. Furthermore, by breaking up the proposal into these steps, it helped greatly when putting it all together. This was the most positive aspect of the process because it made the final plan clearer and more organized.
Using a HyperDoc is something that fits well with my philosophy of teaching. I find this tool to be a nice balance between a traditional method of instruction and one that is innovative. I believe this because with a HyperDoc, students are still using resources that involve reading and taking notes about content (traditional method), but because they are on the computer using different tools (innovative method), they tend to be more excited to learn than by simply using paper and pencil. At the same time, by using technology, students have access to many more resources at their fingertips in order to delve deeper into a topic and research answers to their questions. No one HyperDoc has to look the same; there are various technology tools and resources, and this is something that makes them so attractive to me. As I go along and continue to create HyperDocs, I can vary them, and I can see this helping engagement more since students will be exposed to different things each time they use one. I definitely see a HyperDoc as a very student-centered tool since the students are in charge of navigating through the information instead of receiving direct instruction. I can vary the HyperDocs to meet the needs of different learners with different learning styles in my classroom.Creating ways to achieve this differentiation is challenging, but I like that since each student can work independently on their own device, their HyperDoc can be private so that no one will know if people received different or tweaked versions.
A negative/challenging aspect of the process was deciding which resources to include on the Hyper Doc as there are so many great tools and resources to use. I appreciated the feedback from my technology coach colleague who suggested that I use less to start with. Over the past few months, I have learned about so many useful online tools
like Padlet and Thinglink. I think HyperDocs is a great way to use them
all. As I look ahead, I am concerned with the fact that HyperDocs can be time-consuming to put together, but I believe that as I get more used to using them in the classroom, designing them will not be so bad.
After going through this proposal process, I am excited for the challenge of being a technology specialist. I can see myself being a strong asset to a school to assist my colleagues with designing lessons using technology. Technology is changing education in positive ways, and I am looking forward to being a part of the journey towards improved instruction and learning for students. While doing so, I will keep the SAMR model in mind in order to be making good choices when choosing which technology to use in a lesson. Overall, I am looking forward to implementing this HyperDocs plan in January. I am confident that this tool will help to meet the needs of my diverse group of learners, and it will increase student engagement.
