Photo by Julentto Photography on Unsplash

Throughout this fall semester I’ve had the opportunity to observe, listen, reflect and learn from the students at Esquimalt high, during this process I’ve been able to see many aspects of technology. I’d like to focus on the tools used by the teachers: most of which make use of projectors/PowerPoints. Beyond the traditional lecture based tools, many different scheduling tools were used, mainly Google Classroom, Moodle but also a few others. Seeing teachers using these tools in the classroom let me understand the potential power of these types of tools. I was able to see first hand the flexibility that Google Classroom gives the teacher and their students. These scheduling tools allowed teachers to run courses at the students pace, most notably a math class that could run as long as it took the student to complete the course. This lends the student a huge advantage in terms of math where falling behind can’t often be overcome: the dreaded snowball of not knowing anything, feeling incompetent and then ultimately not showing up to class. The flexibility for a student to fail a test, re-test and not have to worry about where their peers are or teacher is at in terms of content allows them to focus on their learning. There are other classes where perhaps the opposite are possible, where some students excel and as such can often be unchallenged, in this way a course, like many of the technology courses offered at Esquimalt, could be completed within weeks and another course could be started maximizing students who are curious and passionate about certain areas. There is no doubt in both these cases students learning was clearly enhanced, a previously struggling student may have failed math 3 times and left high school with nothing to show and now they would be far less likely to, on the flip side, very gifted and driven students have the opportunity to complete an abundance of tech courses and be immediately hirable upon graduation. This introduction of technology seems amazing and encouraging.

After seeing these teachers use of technology I have made it a goal to use and implement technology as effectively as I have observed. It might not look like offering 18 technology courses within one classroom (requiring an impressive competence on behalf of the teacher), or having a flexibly timed math course (which required far more work than a traditionally paced math class), but it could be the inclusion of many science modules that students are free to access if they have the time, drive or curiosity. I am curious how easily I can implement a technology like Google Classroom to empower and lift up students within the area of science. I think as I develop my own teaching resources (and the ability to source other’s work effectively) I can be more confident that I could provide material without verbal instruction, i.e. a digital/electronic module, and this material would be effective. There certainly would be classes where material like worksheets or assignments or even explanatory videos would be watched in class and having these available for students to access at any time could prove beneficial and easy to implement. Before I wasn’t certain that there would be many transparently advantageous ways to implement technology but after my observations I view it almost as a necessity.