Blog #2: Utilizing Different Types of Media

We all know media is in the school system. Even if personal devises are banned from campuses, they tend to be smuggled into schools and used under the teachers' noses--or so students think. This kind of technology use can be distracting at best, destructive at worst. However, there are positive ways to incorporate media into the classroom, pleasing both the students, who long for more "computer time", and the teachers, who grow weary of taking phones and tablets away from their students.
After researching new ways to tackle this issue and bring technology and classrooms into an agreement, I have found one of the best ways is to instill the BYOD program in schools. BYOD stands for Bring Your Own Device. The main idea of BYOD is that instead of the school purchasing all the media needs such as tablets or iPads, the children who already have a personal device bring it to school and use it when they need to use the web. Going against the usual understanding of devices in school, this idea turns the previous negativity into a positive opportunity. When half the students have a device they can bring from home, then the school need only supply the other half with a loaner tablet. This way, every student can have internet access at their fingertips. Furthermore, when everyone in a class has internet access, they are connected in more ways that one. For example, in the third grade classroom, the whole class could be included in reading circles and discussion online, or they could be researching different websites at the same time, covering more ground than group projects would, while still allowing everyone the equal chance to learn.
Another ingenious way to incorporate technology into the classroom is through teaching with content curation. In this method, the main idea is to amass information and then sort it into logical formats for sharing, and more importantly, for retaining. First, the teacher cumulates websites for safe searching, then sets the students loose to personally and individually take a fine comb to these resources and find all the information they possibly can on a certain subject. This is a helpful concept when it comes to the flipped classroom. Consider the third grade class example from before: if all the information they need is on the internet, students are then able to continue learning outside of normal school hours, and then come back to class with any questions or comments they may have for the teacher.
In conclusion, the way technology used to be viewed when entering a school setting needs to be expelled. In its place, we need to implement the idea that media is not a bad thing, rather it is a very useful tool. As teachers, we need to teach all the ways the gift of technology can be used, in a safe and learning-rich environment.

Resources:

• YouTube Video on BYOD--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7zHdGfN530
• Content Curation article--http://thejournal.com/articles/2012/12/18/teaching-with-content-curation.aspx?sc_lang=en