Bev's ETEC 533 Blog

After reviewing my interviews and reading through those of my classmates, I have noted several similarities, and highlighted a topic I would really like to investigate in greater depth.

A common theme that appeared in many of the interviews was the lack of training for teachers to integrate technology. Several of the interviewees including mine commented that they were self-taught. Another common theme revolved around time. Many of the interviewees felt that preparing lessons with technology integration required a lot of extra time. One of the people I interviewed felt that technology had really given him more time. I think this is because he is an experienced math teacher with a lot of technology background. This gave him the confidence to try things with technology. Katie’s interviewee also mentioned that he now had enough experience that and felt comfortable experimenting with the technology.

Something that stands out for me in my interview, as well as in several other interviews was the attitude towards the use of graphing calculators. Although both teachers I interviewed are math teachers, neither one listed calculators as a technology they used in their classroom. Both of these teachers felt the most powerful technology they had was the SMART board. Katie’s interviewee also reported using the calculator in the class. When asked what impact technology had on this person’s student learning, the response was “ My senior classes use graphing calculators daily and take it all in stride- they are so accustomed to using them”. Joe’s interviewee listed calculators as a technology used in his math class, but the teacher felt that the best technology was the tablet because he could take notes and he could change colours. When Consuela interviewed Teacher C, they commented that they thought graphing calculators are great because students don’t get bogged down with calculations.

Two things strike me about these comments. First the teachers seem to be far more focused on the technologies that they use and not on what their students were using. Comments such as ”it is so much easier to present things”, and “so much easier to store notes” were considered beneficial affordances of technology. Secondly there seemed to be no acknowledgement of the powerful learning tools that graphing calculators can be. Teacher C saw them as a tool for simply calculating, and Katie’s interviewee noted that they were just there. I believe that none of these teachers have really taking into consideration the pedagogy behind using this technology. Instead they are considered much like a piece of paper and a pen, just an instrument for doing quicker calculations. I think this attitude is common amongst many teachers. As a result of this, I am really interested in exploring the pedagogical affordances of graphing calculators.