The Did You Know video was not that surprising to me. Not only am I very aware of how technology has changed drastically in the last few years, I have seen it in my own return to the classroom (there were no online classes during my undergraduate degree). Last year my best friend’s classroom got a smart board. When she finished the two day mandatory training she had a co-workers son play with it for 20 minutes to see how hard it was going to be to relate the technology to her students… he figured out all the features in 10 minutes, and was asking her if he could hook-up his iPod to it to show her a funny video on a bigger screen!
We as educators have to realize that as easy as it is to just plop the students in front of technology that they find entertaining (like we use to do in front of the TV), it does not mean we are helping them! There is a happy medium out there; I am that person in constant search for it! That happy medium requires not only a certain degree of technology but also for the teacher to help students learn how to use that technology constructively. It is no use to know how to text and twitter and update your Facebook page if they don’t understand the moral, ethical and legal implications of sexting and cyber-bullying.
Sometimes technology is just what is more convenient and easiest, so we dump on it and allow our curriculum to be set by it. The hardest part is not deciding between teaching with or without technology; it is getting our students to understand why learning is important. We as educators need to instill in our students how using current and future technology to acquire knowledge that is accurate and useful to what one needs to complete a task is going to be essential for when they ‘grow up’ and join the work force. I worked in a business for years, and I trained many a bright young person straight out of school that complained about the computers and the networks being slow; but could not think their way out of a problem. Those skills are just as important as being able to keep students entertained in the classroom with a fancy new web page or a twitter account.
So I think we are doing the right thing by sometimes being cautious with the technology we introduce in our classroom, and I think we are doing the wrong thing by limiting (financially) what students see in the classroom. That happy medium of mine requires both. Today’s students need to understand our thought pattern regarding technology and its application in a real world scenario so that they can understand its importance in their future.
"Sometimes technology is just what is more convenient and easiest, so we dump on it and allow our curriculum to be set by it.... Those [critical thinking] skills are just as important as being able to keep students entertained in the classroom with a fancy new web page or a twitter account."
ReplyDeleteI would say that if a teacher is merely "entertaining" students with technologies or allowing technology to dictate the curriculum, then this is not the kind of curriculum/technology integration we aspire to in educational technology circles. In fact, either of those extremes gives educational technology a bad name! :-(
Have you seen (or practiced) examples of meaningful integration of technology into the curriculum?
Kelvin,
ReplyDeleteI mearly place the example of the teacher who plop the student in front of technology to propose that we as educators need to find a happy medium between 'traditional' education and 'entretaining' our students with technology.
As for your question... I have participated in meaningful integration of technology with my online courses and even some of my 'traditional' courses that required assignments with technology integration. I enjoy it, and I can see some very practical applications in my own (future) classroom.
As for seeing it in practice, the few classes I have observed have concentrated their technology use with reviews. Most books now come with attached web sites the teachers can log into and the class can play games to review for upcoming quizes or tests. Both the teachers I have observed have used this feature and the class that earns the most points usually gets some sort of reward (usually extra credit or popcorn... food and points are still great motivators!).
I aspire to be able to integrate technology resources into my future classroom... I think sites like epals.com (classrooms and pen pals in Spanish speaking countries)... and Babelfish (has radio stations in Spanish), would be invaluable to me in the future and to my future students so that they may experience and practice their L2 in a more realistic setting.
I really liked how you pointed out that there is a difference between using technology to entertain students and using it to teach students. I agree, but I also think that if you are properly using technology, it will help students learn while also being entertaining. It should be less of a medium and more of a complete combination of both. You also mentioned that it is important to get our “students to understand why learning is important.” This same point came up in one of my other classes yesterday. I disagree that it is important to have children see why learning is important, at least at the elementary level, as long as they are learning. One example of technology that I use that demonstrates both these points is MathLive. It is an interactive math program on the Internet that has many different stories for the different math topics. I use it about once every week or two. The program is almost like a T.V. show with main characters and a different plot for each “episode.” My students LOVE to watch the program and answer to questions/click different options during it. They are extremely engaged and entertained, but they are truly learning from it. The improvement in our Friday quiz scores after I started using it are proof of that. I also don’t think they know why decimals are important in real life or why they need to learn them, but they are definitely motivated to learn them so that Hank doesn’t keep spilling the lemonade and so he can win the wheelchair race. I think if they master the skills and learn how to apply them to different situations in school, they will know when to apply them in real life as an adult. Thanks for you insight!
ReplyDeleteChristie,
ReplyDeleteI sometimes forget not everyone will teach at the 6-12 level (and Kelvin pointed that out)... You are correct, at the elementary level it is not important for students to learn that learning is important. At the higher levels thought I feel it is imperative. Not only because the students tend to be more resistant to what they see as 'pointless learning', but because I think it would help with the drop out rate if students can see how the knowledge is applicable outside the classroom.
It sounds like that MathLive program is great... wish my math teacher would have used something like that instead of walking up and down the isles making us recite the times tables!!
Thank you for your comments,
Alex