DJLN Educator Spotlight: Empowering EdTech-Savvy Students with Amanda Dawes
Transforming the traditional classroom into an innovative 21st century classroom with blended learning can be challenging for both teachers and students. The variety of ways to integrate technology into the classroom can easily overwhelm teachers. There is also the additional struggle for teachers to learn how to use the technology, before integrating it into their classroom. This DJLN Educator Spotlight showcases the incredible efforts of Amanda Dawes and her Tech Fellows to overcome these challenges.
A year ago, Amanda and her school team were working with the DigitalJLearning Network on blended learning and technology integration. An important part of the plan was to facilitate the development of a tech-savvy group of students and to integrate technology to meet curriculum goals. In her 9th grade History classroom, Amanda went after both these goals, using technology to enhance her classroom and also training her students to be skilled technology navigators who are ready and willing to help others. From the initial work with DJLN and her History classroom experience, Amanda created the Tech Fellows program, affectionately known among the students as the SWAT (Students Willing to Assist with Technology) Team.
During a typical school day, the Tech Fellows can be found helping with technological issues, such as setting up the student websites or assisting their teachers with technical problems. The teachers know who the Tech Fellows are and will go to them for assistance regularly. Amanda has found that the program doesn’t need to be overly structured and that having the Fellows help out in their own classrooms gives the program life and fluidity. If there’s a larger, ongoing project, then the Fellows will often meet with Amanda first to discuss a plan and to strategize how best to help out. For instance, when the Fellows built a Google Forms survey to evaluate the school's iPad program, they reviewed the survey data with Amanda and engaged in a discussion with her about what could be learned from the results.
Although the Tech Fellows do convene periodically for a meeting during club time, unsurprisingly, most of their communication is done digitally. The president will sometimes send out a message online (via Remind, Google Group, or Facebook group) telling the Fellows about a project and asking for volunteers who are interested in working on it, but much of the Fellows’ activity is student-driven. When they see a need, they are encouraged to take the initiative and think of creative solutions. Amanda is constantly impressed with how organized the Tech Fellows are with their operations. She will bring them a new EdTech tool that she doesn’t know a whole lot about, and then the students take over and pilot the technology, figuring out the best way to use it in the classroom through creative problem solving and collaboration. The students’ camaraderie and willingness to help makes it all work. This kind of student empowerment is very much a part of the overall school culture at Donna Klein Jewish Academy and the Tech Fellows is just one of the ways students are given the opportunity to take on strong leadership roles in their community.
Reactions to the Tech Fellows have been overwhelmingly positive from both teachers and the students themselves. Amanda explained that the Tech Fellows love their role in the school, because it gives them ownership over their learning and they feel incredibly proud when they help their teachers and fellow students. The program gives them a skill set that is unique and valuable, and there are so many different ways they can apply their experience later on. Although a majority of the current 15 Tech Fellows are Amanda’s former students, some are not, and they were attracted to the program by their peers who have had positive experiences. Any student who wants to be a Fellow must have a willingness to help everyone in the school community with technology, including faculty, staff, and other students. They also need to show they are adept at using the technology itself. Some students demonstrate their abilities by showing initiative and taking on a technology project. For instance, some students made an end-of-year video for the senior class, and other students created a Prezi collaborative project for a science assignment. Through these projects, the students showed their initiative amd desire to help others, and proved that they had the skills it takes to use technology to expand and enhance curriculum goals.
The most rewarding aspect of the Tech Fellows program for Amanda is watching the growth of her students and seeing how their role in the school empowers them with leadership skills. She has seen them go from making rudimentary websites in her History class to building complex interactive websites and helping others in the community to do the same. Amanda uses a special metaphor to describe this blossoming of creativity among her Tech Fellows. “I feel like the conductor,” she says, “and they’re the musicians. I bring them a piece of work and say, ‘Let’s make this happen,’ and they make the music happen.”
Sydney Altschul (11th grade) wrote:
"I had never really considered myself a "techie" until I had the privilege of being in Ms. Dawes 9th grade history class. I was not particularly looking forward to this class because in the past, I had always found history a bit boring. My assumption was that this history class was going to be like all the previous ones I've taken where you read the textbook, take notes, and then are tested based on that information. That assumption proved far from the truth. Ms. Dawes was not only passionate about the subject, but she had ideas flowing to her one after the other about different ways we could apply what we were learning to technology. Applying the historical facts which we were learning in the classroom to modern day technology all of the sudden made history interesting! A light went on for me and I was drawn to learning more about technology and the ways it could be applied to the classroom to help me in other classes the way that it did in Ms. Dawes history class.
Fast forward a year.... My classmates and I have been avid "techies" wanting to learn all the new technologies and be up-to-date so we can teach other students and teachers. Technology has opened up many doors for me not only in my studies, but in my life. It is not without Ms. Dawes and her continuous, ingenues ideas and dedication that I would be the student I am today.
Amanda Dawes has over twelve years of professional teaching experience. In 2010, she received her Master's Degree in Educational Technology from the University of Michigan. She also holds degrees in Psychology and Religious Studies from the University of Miami. In addition to teaching with infused technology, as the EdTech Professional Development Programs’ Director at the Claire and Emmanuel G. Rosenblatt High School at the Donna Klein Jewish Academy, she also specializes in establishing IT strategies and implementing education-centric solutions. Amanda enjoys learning with teachers and students about the best blended learning practices using Google Apps for Education. She is also the proud mother of two Indiana University students. Visit Amanda’s blog at www.facbook.com/AmandaBrookeETPD and follow her on Twitter @abrooke13 to learn more.
