You Will See Return Upon the Investment

“I would create more lessons the integrated technology if I had the time.” This is a statement I often hear from teachers in my professional development sessions. I think many teachers have the desire to create technology rich lessons, but with the hustle and bustle of everyday classroom routine there is little time left for the detailed planning that goes into a lesson designed around technology use. Let’s face it; time is an educator’s most precious commodity. If teachers constantly feel like they are in a race against the clock it might be a struggle for them to find time to create a lesson that uses technology.

Personally I feel that it is well worth the time and effort spent to integrate technology. I think a common misconception that educators have is: “Integrating technology into my lessons is like reinventing the wheel.” It does not to be that way. The advice I would give is to think about the lessons you already have now what can you do to enhance that lesson through technology. Yes, it is going to be an investment of your time, but it is not reinventing the wheel. If teachers would take the a little bit of extra time to integrate technology I think they would be pleased with the results.

I feel that my response to the question “So is using technology in the classroom worth it to you?” is more than a little bias. As a technology integration specialist it is my goal to help educators see the value in technology rich lessons. Also, when I was a classroom teacher technology was my subject area. So obviously I am biased when I say, “Yes, it is worth the time spent to use technology in the classroom.” It has been my experience that students who learn through and with technology have a deeper understanding of the content. Students today feel a connection with technology so any time you can use it in a lesson it can help make that lesson relevant for the student.

The most important advice I would have for anyone integrating technology into a lesson is to not become dependant on the technology. Sometimes good old fashioned instruction is what a student needs. It is also important to consider the fact that sometimes technology does not function the way it is intended. My last two statements might sound like arguments for why someone would not invest time using technology in the classroom. Technology should not be used to replace instruction just enhance it, and it's important to have a back up plan incase the server is down or you run out of battery.

I think most educator and students would agree they can find value in technology use in the classroom. 

Follow the Technology bricked road to Common Core.

When educators first learn of the new standards for common core they may feel like they have been catapulted somewhere over the rainbow to land that is completely foreign to their current existence. Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My! Some may feel overwhelmed by the daunting drive to integrate technology into their daily lessons.
I have found a couple of tools that attempt to help teachers adjust to the land of CC.

The first resource I found that is pretty neat is a livebinder that covers many areas of common core and gives resources to help address that common core standards. This live binder has story resources, writing resources. It then provides you with technology resources to address those standards through technology. Under the writing resources tab is Blabberize which is a website that allows to add a voice over to any picture and make the mouth move(similar to the etrade babies but with a still photo). This would be an amazing classroom project allowing students to write a story and find a picture that goes with that story and record a voice over that "makes the picture talk." The biggest criticism that I would have for the livebinder would be to include examples of student work on the livebinder or be a little more in depth. It seems to be a bit shallow, but still a good find for ways to integrate technology that hits at the common core standards.
Technology Common Core Livebinder
The second is a widget that can help you navigate through the common core by standard. I think this is a great guide for quick look up of the common core standards similar to the Pocket PASS, I don't really know how this would be directly used with student except for teacher planning and sometimes with middle school students it is beneficial to show them the standards so they understand why you, as the teacher, are teaching the material you are teaching. When I would help with math and reading I always showed students the PASS standards that correlated with the content we covered. This is a very useful widget. It gets a thumbs up from me!

Who Benefits from technology in the classroom?

The article from the LA Times Who really benefits from putting high-tech gadgets in classrooms? echoed most of my concerns about technology companies capitalizing on education.

Technology in the classroom comes with a hefty price tag, and although there are ways around the expense of technology in the classroom, it seems that the most affluent schools integrate technology the fastest and the most. For example students who attend a school located in an upscale neighborhood will often have access to more technology than student across town whose school is located next to a trailer park. Many times the PTA in the affluent school will purchase the technology that teachers want and need, while the PTA in the low income school simply does not have the means and or resources to do so. 

I think technology is an important tool that can enhance learning and student engagement it really is all about the teaching. Yes students can learn with out technology in the classroom, but when technology is added to the mix it heightens the students educational experience. It is not meant to be about the technology it is supposed to be about the teaching. Technology is meant to enrich the teaching. For example looking at The International Society for Technology in Education's National Education Technology Standards for students you would hope most of the standards addressed are things that educators are hitting on in their classroom anyway. Creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration, critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making. These are all things teachers should do on a regular basis, but when you do these through technology it deepens the learning experience. Now that I've exhausted my idea of it's about the teaching not only technology let me move to my next soap box....Apple. 

Let me start by saying that I am a fan of Apple. I own many Apple products including the Apple TV (which is a money making machine btw) Apple like most technology companies are a business. What is big idea behind businesses? To make money and Apple has done that. They made you want something you don't need. It's brilliant. I can survive without my iPhone and iPad but Apple has made me believe that I can't. Further more they have me and many others convinced the iPad is revolutionary to education. It has the capability to enhance many educational situations and deepen understanding but I feel that it is lacking in one major area that is vital to many web educational sites. THEY DON'T RUN FLASH!!! Ugh I know it's not going to change and it frustrates me to no end. There are so many awesome web based activities that would be great for a teacher to use in the classroom with a set of iPads accept it wont work because the website you love like glogster runs on flash so it won't work with your handy dandy iPad.  So what do you do, you have to find an app that will do the job but the one that you want will cost you. I want to mention that great apps like iMovie is $9.99 so are all of the productivity apps. I realize that Apple is a business and they have to make money but when does it stop? I'm disgusted that they want 30% of any book that sells through the app store made by the new iBooks. 

It makes me sad to think that technology may be the thing that widens the educational gap further between the "haves" and the "have nots."

Needs Improvement

My situation is slightly different from a classroom teacher incorporating technology into their daily lessons. It is my job to help teachers integrate and use the technology.
I feel that I am proficient with my technology skills especially the intelligent classroom equipment. Where I feel that I could do the most improving would be in my communication with my audience, especially the veteran teachers who are not technology savvy.
I think my self evaluation is vital and every "young" technology professional development facilitator should heed the advice and commentary I am writing.
In a professional development session this past month something I said stuck out to me. I was demonstrating a task for the teachers in my session. I think it was creating a link on the interwrite page or another task that a digital native would classify as simple. When I finished talking the teacher through the task I said in my usually bubbly tone, "And it's that easy" After the words left my mouth and saw the look on the teacher's face I felt like a heel. For her it was not easy, and I imagine I made her feel pretty low in that moment or she was thinking you arrogant little technology snob.
This teacher is a veteran teacher who probably has more years of experience in the classroom that I have of existence on this planet. Though technology has a vital place in the classroom it is not the only form of effective instruction. I then realized, though I may have more experience with technology I haven't been around the block as long as this teacher and needed to respect her knowledge and years experience while at the same time showing her a new form of instruction.
I then stopped and asked the teacher non technology teaching strategy she did with her students. Some how we began to discuss students working on sentence structure. She mentioned that a way she addresses this learning need is to write a sentence with a different work on several note cards and have her students stand at the front of the class holding the note cards out of order. She then has the class put the words into order to work on sentence structure. I then showed her a way that she could preform this exact same task with her interactive white board and the software. Where the students could use the pens to rearrange the words on the board to address the same learning need but also incorporate technology.
Sometimes a teacher who has taught for years and years who may not be great with technology but is still a great teacher can get frustrated with technology integration. It seems to me that they feel like they are being told to fix something they don't feel is broken. It can be scary for them to implement change. This is why as a teacher of teachers it is important to keep in mind how you say things.  I never want to come across like a young arrogant know it all. It is important as an instructor to be humble and kind.
 So I guess what I am working on is

1. Respect your veteran teachers. 
2. Don't be arrogant
3. Watch your tone when instructing 

Literally Digital Idioms

Building upon Prensky's idea that "Today's students think and process information fundamentally differently from their predecessors" (p.4) and coupling that with Johnson's ideas about TV and the internet My lesson would be about making idioms literal through a digital medium. 

My lesson would require students will demonstrate thier research and information fluency by looking up various idioms. They will collaborate with one another to select a series of idoms they would like to portray literally. 

Students will choose between at least two projects for this lesson.

1. They can draw out a literal depcition(ex: a picture of a cat sitting on a copy machine would be a "copy cat") of the idioms and create a 'photostory' book. Photostory works a lot like 'windows movie maker' and 'iMovie' that it allows you to take still photographs and arrange them into a video files that will play like a slide show. (this project will work great with the intelligent classroom. Teachers could use their document camera to take photos of the student's work and then import all of the photos into Photostory [their laptops already have photostory]. 

2.The other choice would be for students to create a video of literal idioms. So they might record a fork in the road and it would be a dining utensil sticking up in the street. Students would work in groups to complete this assignment which would address the need for collaboration and communication. Since students are using prior knowledge to generate new products they are applying innovative creativity. 

3. If a student had another idea of how they would like to demonstrate their literal digital idioms I would be open to suggestions.

As an extension to deepen the student's research and  information fluency, students will be asked to look up the origin of the idioms and the culture from which the particular idiom originates. 

How can I change in my practice?

After the readings and our first class, what is something in your practice that needs to change. Is there something that we did or read that sparked something in you.. and made you think - I could be doing something different that would make me more effective in my job, my life, or my role as a student?

After our first class I set a goal to challenge myself to improve in my practice. In class experience has given me new ideas that I would like to explore in my project. The readings by Prensky have also inspired me to reform my instruction.


Working on a wiki that would be useful in our learning team settings will be the perfect improvement to our communication strategies. At each of the schools in Norman we have have a learning team. These are a mixed group of people (all grade levels, some tech savvy, some not tech savvy) who can help us(the professional development facilitators) identify a learning need within the purview of the intelligent classroom initiative. Previously we had been communicating with learning teams through meetings and email. It makes sense to create an intelligent classroom learning team wiki where each school will have their own learning team page where they can communicate their needs and we can tailor our professional development sessions to fit that content. This will be a more effective form of communication and more time efficient.


I have read Marc Prensky's article before but after reading again for this class I found new insight. Prensky states, "The single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the predigital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language." When I read this again I thought to myself, "This is a two way street." I consider myself a Digital Native and my job consists of instructing many Digital Immigrants. I have always thought this to be a difficult task, but it wasn't until reading this passage that I realized it is difficult because I am speaking a foreign language to most of my students. I am working on modifying my practice of technology instruction to communicate effectively to my Digital Immigrant students. I don't want to be the kind of instructor whose accent is so thick that you cannot understand the message. So, far what I have found to be the most efficient way to communicate instruction for Digital Immigrants is to allow them to be hands on with the technology while you are present to calm any fears they may have and answer any questions. Many Digital Immigrants are worried they are going to break the technology, once you can get them past that fear and to play around with the tech they reach a new comfort level.
It is a work in progress and I am always open to suggestion on how to effectively instruct and communicate with someone whose thought process is different from mine.

5 suggestions for change in the classroom.

1. Many teachers need to change the focus. Instead of having teacher centered discussions and lessons they need to move toward being more student centered. Let the student develop their own understanding of a topic. 

2. Students understand learning through technology so it would be helpful to tie in a variety of multi-media tools. 

3. Allowing students to use technology is where the classroom needs to move. Many teachers have the technology but are worried to let the kids use it. This is still having a teacher centered classroom. The technology needs to be in the hands of the kids! ( I do understand there need to be guidelines for this and I am in full support of teacher guided student centered lessons incorporating technology.)

4. Kids have shorter attention spans so teachers need to restyle lessons that grab and retain students attention. 

5. Don't be boring!

A Little About Me

If you couldn't tell by the title of my blog my name is Bekah Hightower. I am 27 and a newish mom and have a passion for education. I taught middle school technology and video production for 4 years in inner city Oklahoma City. I am very interested in photography and video making. Last July I changed jobs moving to the K20 Center to work as a professional development facilitator. I provide training for the Intelligent Classroom Initiative in all of Norman Public Schools. I love teaching teachers to use technology but desperately miss my students. I have a huge heart for kids. My teaching philosophy is to teach children through whatever means possible. I often find that technology is a medium that students learn though easily.
I love my family more than anything in the entire world and I feel incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful family. My husband Andy and I met when I was in the 8th grade but did not start dating until 2008. It was one of those things where our paths kept crossing but the timing was always off. He and I both have extremely involved parents which provides a wonderful support system when we need help with our 1-year-old son Easton James(EJ). Easton is the light of my life. I love that boy more than anything in the entire world. Each day I am so thankful to be a mom. My son is often the center of my conversations and if that annoys you, get over it. You don't have to listen. Just kidding...kind of.

This is a picture of me and my husband and son: