653: Blended, Flipped, or Personalization

I love the idea of using tech in my classes every period, every day -- just tech being ubiquitous! It's easy to imagine all the Great and Powerful Things we could do if I didn't have to schedule lab time. I mean, seriously -- IT'S 2017, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!


Unfortunately, I'm not one of the Lucky Ones (you know...the 1:1 schools??).


All of these approaches could help me in my work with high school students. They need their work to be personalized for them -- to go deeper into a topic of literature or writing that they have connected to, or go slower to make sure they understand a concept. I attended an EdCamp in September and learned about Personalized Playlists -- where the students take a pretest on the unit, then they have a list of lessons/activities to complete during the unit. I guess it's somewhat like our class game, but I loved just mulling over the idea of a kid knowing that their learning for the day was created just for them. That could be empowering.


I am probably more of a blended learning teacher, though. That's kind of how I roll right now, anyway. I work with Google Classroom and Drive for the most part, but I hear I'm going to have to start using Canvas. That change will be okay, I think. I'm just really worried about the students at my school having access --they aren't all equipped with home computers or Internet, so I have them use their phones whenever possible. But then, I get complaints that they are using too much data...It's hard to be a 21st Century teacher when your community is not.


All in all, these types of technology integration platforms have opened my eyes to possibilities.