Perfect Fit-- Technology and Differentiation

For the past few weeks I have been learning how to use the content management system, Moodle, to plan lessons in the different subject areas. Although it has been overwhelming at times planning lessons in a new way, it has also been very rewarding to see the opportunites that digital teaching has for all the students in the classroom. Digital teaching lends itself very well to differentiation and the possibilities on how it can be used to promote and to extend learning are endless. For each lesson in ELA that is planned in Moodle there is a section specified for differentiation. During today's lesson the students were expected to read a memoir and to create jot notes based on specified sections of the text. In order to ensure that all students met success during the activity, an option was given to listen to the memoir while tracking text. Students were then asked to create jot notes based on the information that they heard. I was particularly impressed with a student who was usually off task because reading was difficult for him. He suffered from low academic self esteem and was usually a class distraction because he was unable to complete his work independently. This option to listen to the memoir and then to create the jot notes allowed him to succeed at the task independently. His technological skills also helped him because he quickly discovered how splitting the screen could allow him to write his jot notes and to have access to the sound recording where he could replay sections of text. After the activity, he was very proud of his product and he commented numerous times how a teacher didn't have to remind him to get back to work. His academic self esteem increased today and it was due to digital learning.