SAMR

How do I teach my students to use technology for their learning advantage? How do I learn to use technology for their learning advantage? What does it look like to infuse my classroom with a healthy amount of technological aid that it would advance learning through classroom management, formative assessments, one on one's, teaching strategies, etc.

The four levels of the SAMR model are helpful in gaging how I am using the tools available to the maximum potential. Why would I invest in something that is simply a substitute for some other learning aid rather than completely redefining learning with tools that project learning forward, leaps and bounds?

As a future teacher, I aspire to use the SAMR model towards propelling my history and reading subjects into a global group project. Collaborating with another classroom in another country, the teacher and myself would agree on a historical biography that our students would, together, read and report on. The students, being from different countries and cultures, would be paired in groups of two for duration of the project, each group including one student from each country. They will need to be communicating via Google Docs and Skype to complete the report. The book would be specific- incorporating the involvement of each individuals national background for example, a book on WWII. This here will give the students opportunity to engage with someone from the other side, with a different perspective on an issue, while learning more about their countries interpersonal history and providing the sharpening of reading, typing, and working with others. Following the rubric, the students will together write a review post on the web, like Amazon, for other viewers to read and they will also create a short video capturing their experience as partners and what they learned about the others culture. These videos will be played in both classes, at different times, across the world, giving historical, national, and safe relational exposure with peers who may never crossed paths.

Each of these project assignments- the book report, book review, video review- all require the internet to be accomplished. Students, thousands of miles away, not only become pen-pals, but actual co-pals in the academic world. Technology here advances the students perceptions of a historical issue and people who are different then themselves, while giving the tools of computer skills and collaboration.

I desire to climb to the top of this SAMR mountain as often as I can with my future students while encouraging others around me to do the same!