According to the Minot Daily News, Julia Koble, a teacher at Minot High School in Minot, North Dakota, was recently awarded a Siemens STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Fellowship, allowing her to attend a one-week development symposium in Silver Spring, Maryland, to learn how to integrate emerging technology and social networking in the classroom.
Classroom technology devices, like a document camera, interactive whiteboard or
DLP projector, can benefit a classroom with energy-efficient programs that encourage novel forms of communication and interaction. At the conference, Koble was introduced to a number of new and emerging classroom technology techniques, including tablet computer integration.
Koble, who uses a number of open-source technological methods in her classroom, including Google Docs, said she was partiularly impressed with the diversity of the iPad's free educational apps and the advances in interactive whiteboard technology.
Koble was also introduced to new methods of social media classroom integration, including using services like Skype and setting up avenues through which students can pose questions via text message or send and share pictures with their cellphones.
A teacher for more than two decades, Koble told the source that technological advances in STEM education have kept her going in part. As the classroom expands, so does the experience for the teacher, as much as the student.
