“Tech Transformation”

Maggie Hos-McGrane is a 28 year teaching veteran and currently teaches Information Technology (IT) at an international school in Switzerland. Having taught in England, Holland, and Thailand, she has worn many hats in the classroom teaching a variety of subjects including geography, social studies, English, health education, and information technology.

Her blog can be found here: http://transformingtechnology.blogspot.com/

Why did you start blogging?

When I knew I was leaving Thailand to move to Switzerland I started a personal blog to write about our experiences for my family. Once I moved I then started my professional blog, Tech Transformation. Since I was moving to a new country I didn’t know many people and thought this would be a good way to share my ideas and thoughts. Everything I write about is connected to student learning. Most international schools where I have taught don’t follow a national curriculum and have a philosophy that completely different from local schools. Writing in my blog allows me to write about the International Baccalaureate and to share these experiences and ideas with others who may not be familiar with these systems.

How do you integrate technology into your classroom?

Normally I try to collaborate with other schools. We use Skype and Voicethread to communicate with one another. As teachers, we try to support each other in our classrooms and share ideas. At my own school I’ll have weekly meetings with teachers where everyone contributes their lesson plans. If one teacher mentions the use of a PowerPoint in class, our open meeting allows us to make suggestions. Instead of a PowerPoint I might suggest the teachers try something more exciting like a podcast. Most are familiar with Microsoft Office, but it’s very new to them when I bring in these web 2.0 tools. After using them, they realize how easy they are and become excited to discover more.

You recently incorporated the iPad into your lesson. How did different level learners handle this new technology?

For my kindergarten students, I just had them sit around and let them do what they wanted as I was curious to see how they could use it without any formal instructions from me. I downloaded a few apps designed for this age group before class and they found them all very easy and didn’t need any help. Taking a different approach with my seventh graders, when I handed them the iPad they wanted to download more apps on it. I took account of how they were looking for things and how they were searching (YouTube being their search engine of choice). After watching and listening, it was interesting to see that everything was very familiar to them even though they had never touched an iPad before. They didn’t ask any questions, just had fun.

Read more about the iPad’s introduction in class with, “First thoughts about using the iPad with my students“.

Do you have a favorite memory from teaching?

Yes, a long time ago before web 2.0 tools were popular and it was rare to interact with others on the web, I was teaching sixth grade in Amsterdam. One of our history projects was to interview the oldest person in their family. I had a student at the time who interviewed her grandmother who had moved to Israel at the beginning of World War II. My student wrote an article describing her grandmother’s journey after she left her entire family in Poland. Someone found this article, which my student had published online, and recognized the name of the village in Poland as well as the last name of her grandmother. They contacted my student to find more information. It turned out this reader was from the same village in Poland and was also a Holocaust survivor. It was an unexpected, but amazing coincidence and this connection would have never been possible without the Internet.

This is part of Schoology’s Behind the Blog: EduBlogger Series. The Schoology Team would like to thank all of the wonderful education bloggers who have participated in the series. For more information about Schoology and these bloggers, please contact Crystal Grandison, Schoology Community Manager, via email crystal@schoology.com.