Integrating technology in the classroom.

It is important these days to include technology inside the classroom to bring something fresh and new to our students, in order to keep them engaged with the lesson.  Because of this, we designed a lesson plan in which it was included a PowerPoint presentation about holidays, being related to the past simple form. We included a variety of activities such as a brainstorming of ideas, skim and scan a text, filling in the blanks and lastly, we showed to them a PowerPoint presentation that served as a model for their final task. Students are expected to write about a place they visited on their holidays and make a PowerPoint presentation to share in the lesson, explaining it briefly in Spanish.  We will be evaluating the linguistic contents which are included in their presentations. They are asked to do this work in pairs.

Taking into account the SAMR model developed by Puentedura, we could find that there are four levels to enhance information which are:

1.    Substitution: The teacher only substitutes the tool without a functional change.

2.    Augmentation: The tech acts as a substitution but with a functional improvement.

3.    Modification: There is a significant re-design in which the use of tech is necessary.

4.    Redefinition: The tasks are inconceivable without technology.

We found that our lesson was in the level of augmentation since the only improvements  students included were pictures or photos they used on the PPP presentation. To take it to a redefinition level, we decided to ask students to make a PPP presentation (which included pictures, music, texst, etc.) and what is more, to give reasons why they went to that place, giving them the opportunity to complete a task through technology.

To conclude, we will leave you a video which explains more in detail the SAMR model: