Reflection Strategies Using Technology

After reading Suzie Boss's article "High Tech Reflection Strategies Make Learning Stick," I began to ponder how technology can help enhance and strengthen reflection practices in the classroom. According to Katie Charner-Laird, a principal at Lincoln-Eliot School in Newton Mass, "encouraging students to pause and think about what they're learning and why it's relevant to their lives is a critical piece." Reflection is the time where students analyze what they've been learning and ask why does this matter? How can I relate? How do I feel about this issue? What can I do about it? This is where I believe the learning really takes on meaning and the essence of the material gets stored into memory.
I loved the way that teachers in this article utilized technology to diversify the ways in which reflective activities were explored. Besides written journals which could sometimes be tedious for students, one teacher used video confessionals to elicit student responses to curricular topics. He used peer interviews and teacher led interviews to encourage daily reflection. Technology offers different ways to address children who process information in different ways. Charner-Laird explains that regardless of using blogging, conversations or writing, teachers need to provide a variety of ways for children to process and reflect on their work.
After reading a variety of material on digital storytelling I believe that this would be another wonderful way to encourage personal reflection. Students can use VoiceThread or ComicLife to construct meaning out of what they are learning. They can create a narrative of how material relates to their experiences using a variety of multimedia and/or use it as a means to inform in a more creative way.
I believe that offering a variety of tools for reflection purposes is very important when trying to differentiate for a variety of students. I have worked in Special Education for four years and I love hearing about how various teachers are using technology and how it can benefit me in my classroom.