Seven Technology Tips for Younger Elementary

Seven Technology Tips For Younger Elementary

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/technology-tips-younger-elementary

This article gives teachers seven tips on how to bring technology into a primary classroom.  The author briefly explains that teachers are not integrating technology into their classrooms because of this fear of technology. How in the world do teachers teach 6 year olds to create projects using technology?  A lot of times, teachers want to incorporate technology but their fears tend to get in the way. The author suggests seven tips to help ease the minds of primary teachers. Tip #1: Before introducing a new tool to your students, play around with it. I completely agree with this! I think it is extremely important to practice and explore a little before introducing something new to your students. Especially to get an idea of what things students might have the most problems with. You have to be a little familiar with what you are teaching before you teach it!  Tip #2: Don’t try to teach too much at one time. I think this is something that any teacher needs to remember! Kids can easily get overwhelmed especially the younger students and throwing too much at them at one time, will most likely get the students to shut down.  The article suggests choosing one or two goals to start with to save yourself a headache in the end.  I think this is especially important with the younger kiddos.  Tip #3: Let students who quickly master the skills, help others. I think other children can be a great resource to other students. I also think there is less pressure when students have their peers to help them. I know some of my students would absolutely thrive on being able to help others!  Tip#4: Use your students as a resource.  This tip talks about training a tech savvy student, to teach others. Use this person as another teacher who can sit and help other students while the teacher is helping someone else. Tip #5: Start small.  First, think about the skills needed to complete the project, teach them those skills before introducing the project.  Tip #6: If you have a student who is a non-reader dictate to you what they want to write or pair them with a student who is an early finisher.  Tip #7: Assess student progress with technology tools.  The article suggests a simple checklist to help keep track of students who may struggle.  The article goes on to talk about how it is okay to feel overwhelmed because there is always a learning curve when learning or trying something new. It takes time before you can get the “rock star” status and you can’t expect to be the best your first time around.  With anything, it takes several attempts and lots of practice. The article also stresses when in doubt, use your students! They can sometimes usually help you, especially when it comes to technology, if you aren't sure how to do something.

I found these tips to be extremely helpful and to be very true. I know I need to go back and use some of these tips in my classroom. I think I can be guilty of trying to throw too much at them at one time. I get these great project ideas in my head that I think would be great to do with the kids, but I try to do too much too fast and then the project just seems to be a bust.  A project that comes to mind would be little bird tales. Some students had no problems completing this project while others it seemed to take forever. I think I needed to refer back to these tips for that project! I know I should have used other students as a resource/teacher that could assist students that had questions. There were so many students that had questions and only one of me and I just found myself having a hard time getting around to each student.  I have a classroom full of students who love to help the teacher and would be great at helping their friends with small problems. I also think that I need to remember that it’s not going to be perfect the first time around, but I have to try to know. I think I expect these great things and when they don’t work exactly how I imagined I am hesitant to try it again. Just because it didn't go a certain way, doesn't mean it wasn't a success, just means I need to keep implementing it and not giving up! I think a lot of teachers would benefit from using these tips as a guide in their classrooms and I completely agree that teachers want to implement but the fear gets the best of them. We all need to remember to work together and help each other and without trying, we won’t know the success we could achieve.