杏吧传媒

04/27/2020
By Katharine Webster

A brand-new, required course in classroom technology for education majors couldn鈥檛 be more timely.

First-year education major Emily Clemente was midway through spring semester and the class, Technology and Digital Literacy, when she learned that 杏吧传媒 was moving all classes online for the rest of the semester to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Being on both sides of the virtual classroom, crafting tech-based lessons as an aspiring teacher and completing her own assignments as a college student, has given her a new appreciation for technology鈥檚 potential and its limitations.

鈥淚 learn better when I鈥檓 taking face-to-face classes, but given the circumstances, so many teachers have been really good about conveying information,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd this class has helped me realize how important it is to incorporate tech in the classroom. Tech has the potential to enhance students鈥� learning experience, especially when it鈥檚 interactive and fun.鈥�

All undergraduate education majors are required to earn Google Educator Level 1 certification because all of the school systems in the Lowell area, where education students get their practical teaching experience, use Google Classroom and related tools, says Clinical Prof. Michelle Scribner-MacLean, who teaches the class. Education students also use Google education tools for their own coursework, and they build their professional teaching portfolios using Google Sites.

This year, the university even gave all first-year education majors a Chromebook as a pilot project to see whether undergraduates can complete all of their coursework by taking advantage of the university鈥檚 free, web-based software and virtual labs 鈥� and without having to buy an expensive personal laptop. So far, it鈥檚 been successful.

Image by Adrien Bisson

After a semester of familiarizing themselves with the laptops, Scribner-MacLean鈥檚 class encouraged the first-year students to delve deeper into Google Classroom and explore other educational apps. Scribner-MacLean isn鈥檛 just teaching technology: She鈥檚 teaching her students to become comfortable experimenting with technology.

鈥淭echnology is always going to change, and you can鈥檛 learn everything,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 want them to develop the mindset of, 鈥業 can try it, I can try it with my students, and we can make mistakes and learn together.鈥欌��

For Clemente, the highlight of the semester was using the university鈥檚 360-degree cameras and Google Tour Creator to develop a virtual field trip of Lowell historical sites that are mentioned in , a novel about a mill girl.

The resulting tours will be combined into a single virtual tour and used by the Tsongas Industrial History Center, an educational partnership between the UML College of Education and .

鈥淚 always think seeing something in person is better, but Google Tours is the next best thing,鈥� Clemente says. 鈥淚t also helped me realize how cool this type of project would be for students to do. It allows them to interact with a landmark and information and make their own thing with it, instead of just reading about it.鈥�

The first two cohorts of undergraduate education majors, now finishing their sophomore and junior years, didn鈥檛 take a dedicated technology class. But since the first day of freshman year, they have been immersed in Google Classroom and related tools like Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets and Google Forms that teachers can use to create assignments, give quizzes and share group work.

Junior Sydney Fagundes says that in a class on teaching English language learners (ELLs), she recently learned how to translate assignments on Google Slides into other languages while giving each student ways to practice their English within the assignments.

That ability to let each child practice fundamental skills at their own pace is the chief benefit of educational technology, says Fagundes.

鈥淚 see it as a great way to reinforce already learned skills. You can鈥檛 constantly provide that one-on-one support that they need, but maybe a game can help them 鈥� and they can do that on their own,鈥� she says.

The biggest drawback, especially now when students are learning from home instead of in classrooms, is that not all of them have access to the technology they need to learn online: a computer and reliable internet service, Fagundes says.

Sophomore Michael Aloisi says he鈥檚 never been especially tech-savvy, but he used Google Classroom as a high school student 鈥� and learning it from the teacher鈥檚 point of view has been 鈥渞eally cool.鈥� It has also helped him to complete his own classes online, since all education majors are using Google Classroom and related apps to work together on projects, hand in assignments and more. (Other academic departments use Blackboard.)

Aloisi is also observing how his mother, a paraprofessional in the North Middlesex Regional School District, is using technology to work with her students from home, now that Massachusetts schools are closed for the remainder of the academic year.

Still, Aloisi can鈥檛 wait to return to on-campus classes, his student teaching experiences and his work in the university鈥檚 Jumpstart program for preschoolers, where he鈥檚 a team leader.

鈥淚 learn best when I can apply what I learn in person,鈥� he says. 鈥淵ou can Zoom and Facetime and Google Hangout as much as you want, but having that face-to-face interaction 鈥� you just can鈥檛 recreate it. Not being able to see the kids that I work with, I miss that so much.鈥�