3.6 Selecting and Evaluating Digital Tools & Resources
Candidates collaborate with teachers and administrators to select and evaluate digital tools and resources for accuracy, suitability, and compatibility with the school technology infrastructure. (PSC 3.6/ISTE 3f)
Artifact: Evaluating Emerging Technologies Project
Reflection:
For ITEC 7445, I was tasked with selecting and evaluating an emerging technology that I was interested in implementing in my school. I chose to research and evaluate a social learning network for education called Edmodo. I knew that Edmodo had been used with success in middle and high schools across the school district, but I did not know of any elementary schools in the district that had widely adopted it. I worked with our school’s P.E. teacher, who was also a high school basketball coach and had personal experience with using Edmodo with his team, in creating a formal presentation for my schools’ teachers and administration to convince them to adopt Edmodo for school-wide use.
This artifact demonstrates my ability to collaborate with teachers to select and evaluate digital tools and resources, as I worked directly with our school’s P.E. teacher to evaluate the tool for our school’s setting and to create the presentation. I did a great deal of initial research about Edmodo on my own; later when describing the tool to him I found out that he was already personally familiar with it. He then pointed me in the direction of specific training materials offered by Edmodo as well as offered his personal perspective of how it could be used in our school, both of which were helpful in my evaluation of Edmodo and development of the presentation. This artifact demonstrates my ability to select and evaluate digital tools and resources, as I selected Edmodo myself for this assignment after hearing about it from peers in this program, and I also conducted a great deal of research to evaluate the tool for the context of our school. For example, it was during this evaluation that I discovered how Edmodo aligns with and supports the Findley Oaks Elementary School Improvement Plan initiative to use technology to help students raise CRCT scores in Math, Reading, and Language Arts over the next three years as well as Fulton County Schools’ 2012-2015 Vision for Student Technology Use and Fulton County School’s Strategic Plan 2017 for CCRPI by offering students experience with 21st century job skills. This evaluation also included finding information about the accuracy, suitability, and compatibility with our school’s technology infrastructure. I found that at its core, Edmodo is a Web 2.0 platform for safe collaboration and communication between teachers, students, and parents, which means that the users input the content so there is no worry about the accuracy of the tool itself. I found that, depending on how it is used, Edmodo can be suitable for both early elementary and late elementary students. Edmodo even provides different quick-start guides specifically for both early elementary and late elementary grade levels. Some teachers at the school might believe Edmodo is unsuitable for our students because they fear students would use Edmodo as a platform for cyberbullying, but with controls available to teachers, such as monitoring student posts, removing student posts, and the option to approve student posts before publishing, this would not be a problem. Edmodo is also compatible with our school’s technology infrastructure because all that is needed to access the tool is an Internet connection and a device capable of connecting to the Internet. Our school’s technology infrastructure includes both an Internet connection as well as many different devices that connect to the Internet, such as a computer lab, laptop cart, iPad carts, and classroom computers. There is no cost to use the Edmodo website or download the Edmodo app on mobile devices.
I gained in-depth understanding and knowledge about Edmodo as a result of completing this evaluation and presentation. Although I have not used Edmodo with my own students yet, I am excited to try it in my classroom after learning about all the teacher-friendly tools available. Before completing the evaluation and presentation, I did not know how many resources Edmodo has available for teachers, students, parents, and administrators. This is perhaps one of the most impressive features of the site. Edmodo would be easy to implement school-wide with the training resources that are available for teachers. If I were to complete a similar evaluation and presentation for another emerging technology in the future, I would want to include many more teachers in the collaboration process. It is possible that other teachers know about or have heard about an emerging technology that would be very beneficial for our school. By including more teachers in the process, our whole school would benefit from exposure to many new technologies. Including other teachers in the process would also provide additional perspectives about how to use a given tool in the classrooms and other benefits and potential drawbacks of that tool.
The purpose of completing this evaluation and presentation was to convince my schools’ teachers and administration to adopt Edmodo for school-wide use, which would then lead to overall school improvement. The success of this presentation can be measured by a simple survey to see how many teachers in the building have adopted Edmodo for use in their own classrooms, as well as the level of support from the administration for using Edmodo in the school.
For ITEC 7445, I was tasked with selecting and evaluating an emerging technology that I was interested in implementing in my school. I chose to research and evaluate a social learning network for education called Edmodo. I knew that Edmodo had been used with success in middle and high schools across the school district, but I did not know of any elementary schools in the district that had widely adopted it. I worked with our school’s P.E. teacher, who was also a high school basketball coach and had personal experience with using Edmodo with his team, in creating a formal presentation for my schools’ teachers and administration to convince them to adopt Edmodo for school-wide use.
This artifact demonstrates my ability to collaborate with teachers to select and evaluate digital tools and resources, as I worked directly with our school’s P.E. teacher to evaluate the tool for our school’s setting and to create the presentation. I did a great deal of initial research about Edmodo on my own; later when describing the tool to him I found out that he was already personally familiar with it. He then pointed me in the direction of specific training materials offered by Edmodo as well as offered his personal perspective of how it could be used in our school, both of which were helpful in my evaluation of Edmodo and development of the presentation. This artifact demonstrates my ability to select and evaluate digital tools and resources, as I selected Edmodo myself for this assignment after hearing about it from peers in this program, and I also conducted a great deal of research to evaluate the tool for the context of our school. For example, it was during this evaluation that I discovered how Edmodo aligns with and supports the Findley Oaks Elementary School Improvement Plan initiative to use technology to help students raise CRCT scores in Math, Reading, and Language Arts over the next three years as well as Fulton County Schools’ 2012-2015 Vision for Student Technology Use and Fulton County School’s Strategic Plan 2017 for CCRPI by offering students experience with 21st century job skills. This evaluation also included finding information about the accuracy, suitability, and compatibility with our school’s technology infrastructure. I found that at its core, Edmodo is a Web 2.0 platform for safe collaboration and communication between teachers, students, and parents, which means that the users input the content so there is no worry about the accuracy of the tool itself. I found that, depending on how it is used, Edmodo can be suitable for both early elementary and late elementary students. Edmodo even provides different quick-start guides specifically for both early elementary and late elementary grade levels. Some teachers at the school might believe Edmodo is unsuitable for our students because they fear students would use Edmodo as a platform for cyberbullying, but with controls available to teachers, such as monitoring student posts, removing student posts, and the option to approve student posts before publishing, this would not be a problem. Edmodo is also compatible with our school’s technology infrastructure because all that is needed to access the tool is an Internet connection and a device capable of connecting to the Internet. Our school’s technology infrastructure includes both an Internet connection as well as many different devices that connect to the Internet, such as a computer lab, laptop cart, iPad carts, and classroom computers. There is no cost to use the Edmodo website or download the Edmodo app on mobile devices.
I gained in-depth understanding and knowledge about Edmodo as a result of completing this evaluation and presentation. Although I have not used Edmodo with my own students yet, I am excited to try it in my classroom after learning about all the teacher-friendly tools available. Before completing the evaluation and presentation, I did not know how many resources Edmodo has available for teachers, students, parents, and administrators. This is perhaps one of the most impressive features of the site. Edmodo would be easy to implement school-wide with the training resources that are available for teachers. If I were to complete a similar evaluation and presentation for another emerging technology in the future, I would want to include many more teachers in the collaboration process. It is possible that other teachers know about or have heard about an emerging technology that would be very beneficial for our school. By including more teachers in the process, our whole school would benefit from exposure to many new technologies. Including other teachers in the process would also provide additional perspectives about how to use a given tool in the classrooms and other benefits and potential drawbacks of that tool.
The purpose of completing this evaluation and presentation was to convince my schools’ teachers and administration to adopt Edmodo for school-wide use, which would then lead to overall school improvement. The success of this presentation can be measured by a simple survey to see how many teachers in the building have adopted Edmodo for use in their own classrooms, as well as the level of support from the administration for using Edmodo in the school.