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College of Education and Human Development at The University of Texas at San Antonio Online Magazine

From Classroom to Classroom
How pre-service teachers are learning how to incorporate the latest technologies into their classrooms

From Classroom to Classroom

The newest crop of pre-service teachers are learning how to incorporate the latest technologies into their classrooms


When Kim Grossett first looked through a pair of Google Cardboard glasses during a technology workshop, she immediately knew that she wanted to bring the glasses to the students in her cooperating teacher’s classroom.

“I wasn’t sure how I was going to make Google Cardboard work for English,” said Grossett, a future secondary level English teacher. “You can make it work for social studies, but for an English class, I was really concerned. I thought about how I would use it and then I thought, ‘I’ll just have them write about the experience.’”

She quickly checked out two, eight-piece Google Cardboard kits from the UTSA Library and brought them with her to her eighth grade, English Language Arts field experience classroom. The results were everything she had hoped for.

“When the kids put the glasses up to their face and looked in the Google Cardboard, they all went ‘ooooh, ahhhhh,’” said Grossett. “They loved it and all we did was one video, the demo video, on Google Cardboard. It’s an arctic scene, so you can go all around and click on things you see and they come to life. The whale comes up and splashes out of the water right in front of you. It’s virtual reality and you really felt like you’re in it.”

The newest crop of pre-service teachers are learning how to incorporate the latest technologies into their classrooms

After the demo video, the students put pen to paper and were able to write about the experience and what they saw using the information they had learned in the previous week’s lesson.

“They wrote about the experience and described it like they were describing it to someone who didn’t see it,” said Grossett. “We had just finished a lesson on adjectives and adverbs, so it was perfect. They were able to practice using their adjectives to describe the scene. It was a big hit.”

Grossett is just one of more than 350 UTSA students who have taken a technology workshop through the Office of Teacher Education Services during the fall 2016 semester. The workshops, which are free and open to all students, faculty, and staff in the College of Education and Human Development, cover a wide variety of technologies available to use in the classroom.

“Our workshops range anywhere from learning how to use a Smart Board to identifying credible sources through curation sites like the Library of Congress, National Geographic for Educators, and the Google Arts Institute,” said Ilna Colemere, program coordinator and technology workshop instructor. “The workshops that we offer are based on the International Society for Technology and Education standards and also the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills technology application standards.”

All of the workshops are immersive and participants leave with new skills that they can use during their field experiences, clinical teaching, and as a full-time educator.

“My belief is that the students, the clinical teachers, have to be sitting at a computer because that’s the only way that they’re going to learn,” said Colemere. “They are not going to learn with me standing in front of them telling them where to click. All of the workshops are hands-on.”

At the start of the fall 2016 semester, Colemere led a technology workshop, “Imagine the Possibilities,” for all new clinical teachers in the UTSA Advanced Visualization Laboratory (VizLab) in the College of Engineering. The clinical teachers were able to experience the VizWall, a 14-foot wall comprised of 24 high-definition monitors, and a virtual reality simulator.

The newest crop of pre-service teachers are learning how to incorporate the latest technologies into their classrooms

The clinical teachers then continued the workshop in the library where they were given a lesson on similar technologies that are more affordable and accessible.

“We wanted to give students the experience of the ideal, of what could be if we had a lot of money in the classroom,” said Colemere. “Because we don’t have a lot of money, we showed them some applications that are comparable, that can do the same thing and are free. We wanted the students to ‘Imagine the Possibilities’ and look at the reality and see that they are both great.”

In fact, there are more than 78 different types of technology materials that UTSA students can check out for their classrooms, including Snap Circuits, Little Bits, and Google Cardboard.

“Google Cardboard is just amazing to me because it tears down the walls of the classroom and it expands that environment and the experience for the students,” said Colemere. “Virtual and augmented realities are increasingly important in the classroom.”

Over the last few years, the classroom environment has shifted to focus more on the growing number of technologies available.

“They’re using technology more and more in the classroom,” said Grossett. “They’re doing quizzes on software called Kahoot, where the kids answer questions from their phones or laptops from their desk. There are a lot of different software programs and websites out there that teachers are using.”

Recently, Grossett participated in a workshop on Google Arts and Culture Institute, which is something she is already planning on using during her clinical teaching and in her own classroom in the future.

“With the Google Arts and Culture Institute, you can go on tours of museums,” said Grossett. “When we’re studying a writer, we can go to their house and really see it. It’s really a great way to be an armchair traveler. I’m looking forward to that.”

Like Grossett, Colemere hopes that these workshops do more than just prepare educators for the changing classroom environment.

“I want them to be critical consumers of technology, and I hope that’s one of the things they leave with,” said Colemere. “Just because it’s out there, it doesn’t mean that it’s good. You have to find what works for you and your classroom.”

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