In my PSIII practicum, I have strived to incorporate the use of devices and purposeful integration of technology into my lessons. I highlight purposeful because it is easy for us to turn technology into a mechanism that is a fancier version of what we were doing before. As George Couros mentioned in his keynote presentation at the PD day that I attended, "We need to see what we can do with technology that we couldn't do before. Otherwise we just have an expensive pencil".
It was interesting to see that when students had the opportunity to use technology in class, they were more engaged and ran with the opportunity. The more "cutting-edge" technology was where students were most engaged. This is a reiteration of the idea that as teachers, we need to have access to "cutting edge" ideas and technologies in order to be life long learners. The purposeful integration of technology also allows students to make connections with content and the 'real-world'.
I have applied the use of QR codes into my genetics lessons. This purposeful integration of technology proved to be very effective at engaging students. It also allowed me to make connections to the content.
I created a worksheet with different Punnett squares looking at different genes. On the same worksheet I put an image of a blank face. For each gene, I created two possible phenotypes that would be randomly assorted throughout the class. The students each received a QR code for each gene. They had to scan the QR code to get information about their parents genotype (info to fill out the Punnett square). Once they found out their genotypes, they had to identify their phenotype and colour it in on their blank face.
With this activity, I was able to make connections with the students that the QR codes represented the genetic code, the colouring represented the phenotype, the alleles were given in the blurb given with the QR code scan. Students can now make these connections with further examples that I present in class.
IHS WebQuest
It will be interesting to see if the students complete the required forums and posts with the webpage. This will be another gauge for engagement.