“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”― Leo Tolstoy
Change. . .it isn’t coming, it is already here! Teachers are changing the world every day by influencing the knowledge and beliefs of tomorrow’s leaders. However, the traditional classroom is changing and in order to remain effective, educators must adapt to a new learning environment, an environment in which technology plays an increasingly important role.
Professional development, for the 21st century educator needs to focus on integrating technology into the classroom for all aspects of education – lessons, assignments, evaluations, etc. It isn’t enough to know what a technology can offer and how it works, but it is essential that educators understand how to use these technologies within the classroom to create that global classroom in which students can learn and explore.
In his TED Talk, Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, described how Khan Academy came to be and provided examples of how it can be used within the classroom. The most profound, and ah-ha moment I had was when he discussed the ‘flipping’ of the classroom. Too often I have found myself thinking about teachers can use technology to increase communication and interaction of students with subject matter experts and people across the world, but little about how teachers can use technology to increase student-instructor interaction. Instead if being concerned about losing the student-instructor interaction within the classroom, Salman Khan provided an example of ways in which Khan Academy has increased the one-on-one time instructors can spend with individual students! By ‘flipping’ the classroom, students are spending homework time watching the lectures and preparing the foundational knowledge for the next day’s lesson, enabling the instructor to spend more time in the classroom working through examples, expanding upon concepts, and helping students where needed.
Not only does Khan Academy provide videos to introduce concepts they also supply students with evaluation activities to check for understanding. Instructors are than able to use the metrics associated to a student to understand where the student is struggling and where the student is succeeding. Furthermore, students are able to work at their own pace and ensure foundational knowledge is obtained before moving on to the next lesson. So, students are able to receive a more personalized lesson!
This whole concept just inspired me! Enabling me to reflect upon how technology can be used for planning, practicing, and evaluating concepts! This is exactly the type of concept that professional development should be focusing on – the effective ways in which to integrate technology into the classroom!
To integrate technology into the classroom is not to just use it while the students are in your presence, but to encourage it’s use outside of the classroom as well. Unfortunately the technologies of today are not the technologies of tomorrow. Technology is perhaps the most rapidly changing field and young people quickly and easily master and accept these changes, it is the world they are growing up in.
In order to remain effective, the 21st century instructor must constantly be willing to accept these changes and learn the skills necessary to utilize these new technologies. Educators must subscribe to the notion of life-long learning and constantly familiarize themselves with these new technologies. Because these technologies change so quickly, I think it is important that educators utilize as many free and open source softwares as possible – thus, avoiding concerns with licensing and decreasing budgets.