Blog Reflection #7

I knew Google had a lot to offer but I never really spent time going through all the different applications before and it is amazing what all is available to us for FREE! Very cool stuff with so much potential. Something fun I added on to my personal blog was the Google Analytics application which tracks the traffic to your blog so you can see how many hits your site has had and from what locations and all kinds of interesting information!

I recently discovered the "Career Cruising" database offered by my district, so I have been wanting to incorporate that into a lesson for my students. I also wanted to incorporate collaboration and technology so what better tool to use than Google Docs? I think it is important for them to learn to use applications like Google Docs because they will likely be using technology like that in their future careers, whatever those might be! Technology like this gives group work and peer collaboration a whole new meaning and all new possibilities.

I definitely plan to use this lesson with my library classes in the near future. I expect for students to not only start to develop a deeper understanding of the careers they are interested in, but I expect they will be more aware of the online databases available to them. I also expect they will be more familiar with a technology that will be a of great assistance to them as they collaborate with peers and possibly even co-workers in the future.

I'm viewing instruction differently now in that when I think of an objective I want students to learn, I think beyond the foundational objective and think of what 21st century skill do I also want them to learn and how can I "marry" those goals? It is so important that we not only teach our students the core curriculum but that we teach it in ways that also gives them technology literacy and ability as well.