Hendershott Ed Tech

Imagine a classroom where students are engaged, enjoying school, learning twenty-first-century skills, and improving their performance. That is what people want to see in the educational environment. These ideas are more easily said than done and may seem far off, but what if our education system was closer to these goals then people realized. A blended learning environment can help students achieve at a higher, more rigorous level, and learn in a way that is more applicable to the modern world that they currently live in and will be living in the future. The theory behind blended-learning is that it is ideal to best serve the student for their modern and future environments. The twenty-first century is an age with full technology integration within the culture. Our students will be working in a workforce that will be using technology for every current and new future job. Traditional teaching methods were more relevant to a pre-technology era, where it has the teacher lecturer de...

The video embedded above describes in detail the teacher-driven instructional coaching at Albemarle County Public Schools. Within the district, there are 24 instructional coaches who work in 3 different buildings; this means that every coach has 3 different coaches working within their schools.  Their jobs are to support the teachers in any way that the teacher is asking. This means that when a teacher has a diverse set of learning needs, the coaches are there providing materials and ideas to address this. Coaches also promote collaboration within the teacher’s professional development. Teachers can grow from feedback provided by the coaches, and in return, give feedback on some of the successes and areas that need improvement. The biggest success I see in the method that Albemarle School’s coaches do is that they build a huge network and resource pool to best help their district. The coaches are able to gather all their ideas from their schools and share them with other coaches...

SAMR and TPACK are two different frameworks used to measure technology integration. So what are they? How do I use them? SAMR- The SAMR framework measures four levels of technology integration in the classroom. It is a great tool for educators to assess where your lesson falls on the ladder. Here is an example of the SAMR model. 1. Substitution- The substitution level means that teachers are using new technology to replace old ones. An example of substitution would be to replace a math fraction worksheet with an excel sheet and using colored blocks. 2. Augmentation- The augmentation level is still substituting but building on the features of the substitute. Continuing the example of the fraction math lesson, augmentation would be to have students use Google Sheets and the teacher giving feedback directly on the work the students are doing. 3. Modification- The modification level has the students redesigning the task to acquire deeper thinking on part of the students. T...

Conferences are a great time for teachers to focus on learning, network with other professionals, and develop their teaching craft. However, teachers are not limited to attending a conference if they are not able to or if a budget does not allow. Due to the ability to access an almost infinite amount of information online, teachers can professionally develop anywhere and anytime. These are a couple conference videos I found useful from the Future of Education Technolgy YouTube Channel. The first video is "Tools You Can Use Tomorrow" (40:22) https://youtu.be/6sGI2JiQjIg by Leslie Fisher from the 2015 Future of Education Technology Conference. This speaker highlights various tools within our computers or online that teachers can use immediately. She shows different screen sharing tools that your students can access seeing your screen or each other's screens when collaborating. One tool I like is the https://recordit.co website. This website allows you to record you...

Hi! My name is Joey Hendershott and this is my blog about educational technology and its integration into classrooms. About Me: I am a recent resident of Lansing, Michigan. I previously taught fifth grade in Des Moines, Iowa for three years prior to the move. I graduated from Northwestern College in 2015 with an elementary education degree and certifications in reading, physical education, and coaching. I grew up in Boise, Idaho, on a diet of mostly potatoes, and I am the youngest of three siblings. I was recently married in March 2019 and I have been loving it! My wife and I made the bold move to head to Michigan to help plant a church here. This is an area that is very hungry for the gospel. Our church is part of a network of churches called the Salt Network that specializes in college ministry, with our targets for this location being Michigan State and Lansing Community College. I will still be teaching here in Lansing, but we will be helping wherever needed for our church....

Empowered Learner - Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. Students can customize there learning experience. A very powerful method to address this would be to run a blended learning style classroom. This blends traditional and non-traditional methods like e-learning together. An example would be: Students learn a lesson through a face-to-face lesson, then they have access to a video that explains the lesson followed by an assignment to assess their understanding of the concept. What is nice is students can learn at their own pace and can rewatch the content to better understand. The biggest plus of blended learning is students would have access to the content outside of the classroom as well. Digital Citizen - Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they...