The Journey Begins - My First Two Years Incorporating Technology in a Middle School Social Studies Classroom

I remember my job interview like it was yesterday.  It was my fourth interview of the day and I was exhausted and nervous.  It did not help that there was an issue getting through the security gate on base, which almost made me late. When I was driving home later that night, I keep thinking I had messed up on the interview.  You can imagine my surprise, when two days later, I received a call from the Human Resource director of the Caesar Rodney School District, who offered me the job as an English and Social Studies teacher at Dover Air Base Middle School.  I was beyond excited, since it was my dream job.  The next year was a blur - moving and adjusting to a new city, making and implementing lesson plans for five different classes and beginning my district's required three year mentoring program.  While I certainly used technology that first year teaching - smartboards, computers, video clips, audio clips, etc - I did not seriously use new technology or technology for a specific purpose or goal until my second year of teaching.

As with most school district - as far as I know - the first days back are filled with in services and meetings. My second year of teaching started in just the same way as my first, with one key difference.  During the summer holiday, at one of the administrator meeting, it was decided that the number one district priority for the next few school years, including the current one, would be dedicated to implementing technology in the classroom at all academic levels.  Upon reflection, when I first heard this news, I was terrified.  The first school meeting, my second year of teaching, the school year of 2013 and 2014, was filled with references to technologies and websites I was clueless about and was expected to institute in the classroom. Fortunately, the district provided plenty of training and support that school year to help teachers adapt and institute the new technologies.  By the third month of school, after watching some videos, including "Three easy ways to use google drive in the classroom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uuofqvUOSI and "Edmodo in the classroom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSuwnX9rdQw, talking with my fellow teachers and looking over my lesson plans, I comfortable slowly instituting Google Drive and Edmodo in my classroom.

Over the next few months, until early January, I experimented and fiddled with Edmodo and Google Drive.  I practiced sharing files and folders, uploading my lesson plans on Google Drive, created lesson plans on Google Drive and finally created my first student activities on both Google Drive and Edmodo.  By the Winter holiday season of 2013, I felt confident enough to create and implement a Google Drive based project in my classroom. The pictures below are some snapshot of the documents created on Google Drive for the project.

Google Drive created worksheet used by the students
during the Supreme Court Case Project.

Google Drive created instruction sheet referenced by students during
the Supreme Court Case Project.

The week after the winter holiday in early January 2014, I was ready for the students to starting using Google Drive in my Social Studies classroom and the newly purchased Chromebooks. Since this was the first time the students were using the Chromebooks and completing this project electronically, I expected there to be some technologically issues, but I was not prepared for the severely increased stress level and frustration that would follow in the next two weeks. The troubles began on the first day of the project, when the students struggled to log on to the Chromebooks,which lead to panicked emails back and forth with the Caesar Rodney District technology coordinator. Once that problem was fixed, the next day more problems emerged - internet connection was out, work was disappearing, students did not have the required documents in their Google Drive.  On the second day of the project, there were some many individualized issues with different student Google Drive accounts, that the project had to be temporary suspended and an entire class period was dedicated to working individually with students to fix the problems.

Day three was the turning point for technology integration in my classroom. All of the technology issues had been solved, the students had all the documents they needed in their Google Chrome accounts and they were ready to jump into the research portion of the project.  Day three and four of the project went well and stress levels decreased dramatically. Day five proved to be a bit of struggle, as the students had to send their first Google document back to the teacher for review. After some quick research, I had the students watch the following video, which gave them step by step instructions on how to share documents on Google Drive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25CtYkqamIA. Once the students learned how to share documents on Google Drive, the rest of the project and technologies become easier and easier to navigate and the students were sharing and teaching the teacher how to use some features on Google Drive!

While the incorporation of Google Drive in my classroom via the Supreme Court Case research project was one of the most stressful and frustrating points in my teaching career, I am glad that I implemented and continue to use Google Drive in my classroom. The next time the students completed a project on Google Drive, I was a year wiser and was able to explain and demonstrate the skills needed to successfully navigate Google Drive in a more efficient manner.  The next year the project went much smoother and was more enjoyable to institute.  This year, due to sickness and snow days, the students will be completing that Google Drive based project later in the year than normal - in two weeks to be specific.  I hope that the project continues to improve every year!

     My Google Drive Homepage. This is without a doubt my most
treasured and useful teaching tool at the moment.

With Google Drive firmly under my belt, I felt confident enough to institute another new technology in my classroom.  This time, my focus and efforts turned to learning the educational advantages and useful applications of Edmodo. As is tradition, I did extensive research about Edmodo before having the students use it in the classroom.  I was most interested in the discussion post aspect of Edmodo. After reading the following articles - http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/how-educators-can-use-edmodo.shtml and http://teachbytes.com/2013/10/06/7-reasons-to-use-edmodo-in-your-classroom/ - I started to make some simple assignments that would help the students learn this new technology.  Thanks to the newly purchased chromebook, the students had plenty of opportunities to figure out Edmodo before I started using it as a formal educational tool.   

Edmodo, during the rest of the year, become a forum for students to ask clarification questions, a place for the students to practice their writing skills by answering fun, but content specific questions and a place for students to continue discussions started in class. While I did not use this technology in the classroom as much as Google Drive, it is still an important part of my classroom environment. 

Some of the many discussion questions the students
answered on Edmodo throughout the school year. 

As a child who grow up during the technology revolution of the early to mid 90's, it may seem unusual that I was worried about incorporating technology in my Social Studies classroom, but by the end of this first journey I was very, very glad that I incorporated technology in my classroom. While it can be a rewarding experience, it is important to do your research and give the students plenty of time to adjust.

By the end of my second year teaching, I was feeling good - really good - about using Google Drive and Edmodo in my classroom and was already excited to use them again the following school year.However, in teaching you never know what each day will bring, and more surprise and suggestions were in store for me, but that is a story for another time!