Technology-Leadership+Book+Summary



The book I have chosen to summarize is __Teaching With the Tools Kids Really Use__ by Susan Brooks-Young. I chose this book because, as a home educator, I have access to limited technology resources. I wanted to know more about the most common and available technologies and ways to implement them with my children in my classroom here at home. This information presented in this book did not dissapoint. I liked how each section followed the same guidelines: overview, common objections, changing viewpoints, classroom use strategies, practical suggestions, and discussion points.

The author started out discussing the 21st century skills needed for today's students. This was somewhat of a recap for me because so much of what was discussed in this first section I recalled learning in the first few weeks of this Master's class. Brooks-Young went on to discuss the different mobile technologies like cell phones, MP3 players, and Netbooks. In this section, I found the discussion points the most beneficial. The discussion points touched on questions that sparked my interest and made me think about their (cell phone, MP3 Player, Netbook) impact in my life and in the lives of my children. I had never thought of a cell phone as a learning tool; MP3 Players and Netbooks, of course, but not cell phones. Reading this section has helped me to see how they can be valid learning tools, especially if you have the fancy smartphones.

The second part of the book covered Web 2.0 tools. Brooks-Young described several tools: social networks, virtual worlds, Blogs, digital video, and gaming. The 'strategies for classroom use' and 'practical suggestions' sections were the most valuable to me in this part of the book. Being that my students/children are early elementary age, in the 'virtual world' and 'gaming' subsections, I was excited to see several educational sites listed as well as what the overall purpose and jist of those sites. I think more teachers would use these sites in their own classrooms if they just knew about them. This book was valuable in introducing in simple, easy to understand terms, the purpose and use of Blogs and Wikis. Until this class, I was very unfamiliar with these two tools, especially as to their use in the classroom. Brooks-Young (2010) describes many ways to implement these into the classroom as "an excellent way to focus both on core content and applied 21st century skills" ( p.73).

In the last section of the book, the author discusses digital citizenship and decision-making model. Brooks-Young focused on ethics, cyber-bullying, respect, acceptable use policies, and codes of conduct, as well as cheating and plaigarism.Regarding acceptable use policies and codes of conduct, one statement stood out to me. The author discussed the common occurance of parents not reading their huge packet of papers sent home at the beginning of the school year. Brooks-Young (2010) stated, "A more effective approach is to take the time at the start of the school year to educate parents about the content of these documents...and to carefully review behavior expectations and the acceptable use policy with students" (p.108).

In conclusion, this book discusses, in clear simplicity, the most common technologies available. The overviews, common objections, changing viewpoints, classroom use strategies, practical suggestions, and discussion points will help you understand how to effectively implement these tools in your own classrooms.