Technology in the classroom.

Sounds like an issue to me!  Technology is constantly changing, as a result so does how we use it.  I became involved in this program in order to learn more about different types of technology and how it can be used to help people understand things.  Seems simple right?  While as with learning anything as you get beyond skin deep understandings and come to recognize the inner workings of a subject, in some cases the answers we find only lead to more questions!  This course focused on the use of technology in the math and science classroom but for much of the course there was a real focus on issues of technology use.  I think many, if not all of us in this program think that there are some real benefits to using technology and I have not changed my mind about that at all.  However, the famous line reads with great power comes great responsibility, so with the added benefits of being able to understand the uses and hopefully being able to apply those uses for our students we have to be aware of the consequences and possible criticisms that others may give us along the way.  The journey in this course for me started with taking a look into the issues of using technology, perhaps a good method for the analysis of specific technologies which came later in the course.

Beginnings

Like any good educator and professional before I started getting my hands messy with course I took a quick reflection back to my experiences with technology.  Obviously I had a computer and Nintendo as a kid but considering the academic nature of the course I was to focus on how I previously used technology in an educational context.  This experience did change my outlook on the use of technology way back when… I just didn’t realize how much until I thought about it.  I did so much I even described it as having “changed the way I wanted to learn and how I learned. It helped me to see the power of technology and how it can create opportunities” (Di Palma, 2010).  This was in regards to my first online course I did in a WebCT format in third year university.  Of course as I explained in that posting I had originally signed up for the course through convenience because I was a commuter.  I didn’t want to drive 30 minutes so I figured online learning was the way to go.  Interesting that it was the convenience factor that lead me to take the course but once I had begun I also quickly learned how to appreciate the flexibility and design online courses afford.  It was the beginning of a journey that has brought me here to the MET program.  After this initial reflection I was ready to think more deeply about educational technology, not just from a students’ perspective but also from an educators’ perspective.  This brings me to my next thoughts…….

Technology: the Good

So technology can be bad?  As with anything there can be perspectives that either compliment or negatively impact the use of technology.  Given my professional status I generally try to see the good in many things.  Technology use is no exception as evidenced by my posting regarding the good uses of technology.  In the post I argued that:

“to quickly summarize good use of technology in a classroom would facilitate at least two things:
– it would improve student understanding by manipulating the learning environment to involve different techniques for knowledge delivery
– it would improve student learning generally by lowering the time it takes for students to acquire knowledge and /or perhaps decreasing preparation time for teachers which allows them to focus on other areas that students may be struggling with” (Di Palma, 2010).

Therefore technology has its uses from an educator’s perspective as well as a student’s.  The use of digital imaging applications as an example is very valuable and was the beginning of my thinking towards how virtual applications can improve student learning capabilities, something that lead into my research in the course later. 

Technology: the Issues

As mentioned previously technology use can be have not only positive use but as any good scholar would point out there are also issues involved that can hinder its employment in a classroom.  After conducting interviews with two colleagues I was bombarded with the negative aspects of technology use that I may have not considered previously.  Incorporating technology into a classroom is not always a simple task.  There are considerations to be taken into account including “who gets what and how fair access to these technologies can be administered” and “teachers may not be interested or may not find it a beneficial use of their time to learn how to use technology if they don’t see how it directly improves student results” (Di Palma, 2010).  These issues need to be taken into account when teachers are planning their programs as they are issues because sometimes they just don’t get solved for one reason or another.  Different teachers, with different experiences and at different points in their careers also play a big part in making a decision to use a certain technology.  Teachers need to weigh the costs and benefits of implementing a technology to make sure they are getting what they and their students need from it before jumping in and making a decision to use it.  This was a critical point to consider that I had originally overlooked while I was drawn to the flash and glamour of making use of some cutting edge activities.  A point I will not forget in the future when making planning decisions into my personal pedagogy.  But let’s not get too hung up on it because the motivation and meaningful affordances of virtual technology can sure knock a learner’s socks off!

Real Science Learning Conducted Virtually

Visual interactive technology has a great knack for bringing things to life for students.  Comparing what can be learned in a textbook and what can seem like a real life activity through a computer will often always end with the same result, go with the computer simulation!  Students have improved motivation and focus when actually interacting with the material that they are learning.  Interactive applications give curriculum meaning and provide experiential opportunities for students to get their hands messy….. Unless, of course the activities are virtual simulations conducted in an online environment. The next step in my learning came back to working with virtual simulations, specifically online dissections which are a great tool for teachers and students since they can be repeated multiple times and use no real resources (Di Palma, 2010).  It was during this time that I came to the realization that I had a particular interest in the simulations that technology can provide to students.  Even after considering the issues involved in technology use the thought of being to use simulations to engage students seemed too good to worry about negative issues involved.  Again I came back to the cost benefit ratio of employing certain technologies in the classroom and this one was a real winner.  I chose to conduct my issues research on the merits of incorporating virtual labs in the classroom as a supplement to real lab activities and that was when I realized that I was a true believer in the use of technology to improve my own pedagogy.  There was no turning back from there and I decided to take things to the next level and look into virtual worlds to supplement student’s classroom experiences.

Sold to the Man in the Red Hat: A Virtual Learning Environment

I was intrigued by the opportunities students could have learning in a virtual environment.  Now it wasn’t just completing a virtual activity but the entire learning experience could be immersed in a visually stimulating, collaborative and realistic environment.  The activity didn’t just involve a dissection but it was an entire virtual place that could be manipulated to immerse a student in a life like situation that involved learning science.  Second Life is a multi user virtual environment where students can collaborate, manipulate and engage in activities that may not be available to them in the real world.  The topics I had been researching previously were now no longer separate activities but they could be housed all in one place, Genome Island.  The virtual island contained visual simulations of molecules, demonstrations of popular genetic studies and opportunities for users to conduct their own investigations.  I felt like I hit the jackpot!  I felt like all the research I had done to show the potential merits of online learning had been justified by this visually stimulating interactive environment.  Of course I did consider the potential issues that could be involved in using this environment including the possibility of predators being represented virtually as the island is not exclusive to just my students and the possibility of students being distracted with other content that they can potentially access in the virtual world but these issues can be overcome and I feel the benefits definitely outweigh the potential costs.  Taking time to introduce students to navigating and setting up user accounts is another cost to consider, but after reflecting on what I originally thought was a great online learning experience (using Web CT back in my first online course) this new option for learning online was overwhelmingly advanced. The Web CT interface never afforded the kind of life like feel and visual cues that Genome Island does (Di Palma, 2010).  Something that I hope will intrinsically motivate my students to engage in their own learning in a way they never thought possible.  What an enlightening experience!

Conclusion

After all my research and time spent thinking about what I have learned thus far in this course I have developed a true appreciation for the power that interactive technology can provide to learners.  So I have evolved from a learner who reflected on my original experience with technology and how I felt it was beneficial for me as a student, although from a lifestyle convenience perspective, then asking myself questions about the merits of the actual use of technology to directly improve learning, then considering the issues involved with incorporating technologies into a learning environment and then coming to final conclusions about at least one type of educational technology that even after considering some of the potential flaws, seems to offer cutting edge opportunities to engage learners in virtually presented content.  My next questions no longer involve the merits of using educational technology as I have already justified them to myself through reflection, research, considerations and potential benefits but how will educational technology improve student learning from here?   I am placing my bets on haptics and the potential to involve sensations in virtual learning experiences.

References

Di Palma, A. (2010, January 10).  The Online Learning Classroom [Web blog message]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/dipalmaetec533/2010/01/10/the-online-learning-classroom/

Di Palma, A. (2010, January 17). What Makes Good Use of Technology? [Web blog message]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/dipalmaetec533/2010/01/17/what-makes-good-use-of-technology/

Di Palma, A. (2010, February 1).  Technology Issues in the Classroom: A Reflection [Web blog message]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/dipalmaetec533/2010/02/01/technology-issues-in-the-classroom-a-reflection/

Di Palma, A. (2010, March 15). Making Science Become More Real [Web blog message]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/dipalmaetec533/2010/03/15/making-science-become-more-real/

Di Palma, A. (2010, April 15). Is Second Life Merely a Techie Playground for Social Encounters or Can it be Transformed Into a Meaningful and Effective Method of Instruction? [Web blog message]. Retrieved from https://blogs.ubc.ca/dipalmaetec533/2010/04/15/is-second-life-merely-a-techie-playground-for-social-encounters-or-can-it-be-transformed-into-a-meaningful-and-effective-method-of-instruction/

I chose to look into learning science in Second Life (SL) as I have become quite intrigued with virtual worlds and education. I think there is huge potential for using these virtual spaces to create learning opportunities.

Genome Island is a virual laboratory for teaching undergraduate genetics since 2007. The island includes many activities including experiments on the principles of Medelian inheritance, molecular and bacterial genetics, population genetics and many more activities. There are also reproductions of the monohybrid Pea Cross and Bacterial Transformation.

You really need to check this place out!

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Genome/118/145/53

the above link will take you to the SLurl for Genome Island but you will need to have an SL account.

Also check out this blog posting for other links to learning science in Second Life

Role playing in the science and math classroom I think has been neglected as a teaching style to promote student learning. It is true these techniques are often employed in social studies so I am trying to consider why they are not generally a part of the sciences.
Role playing may provide opportunities for students to learn with meaning as it can help them to understand the place of using these tools in life. Meaningful learning in my opinion increases student motivation because it gives their learning purpose. Of course this also depends on what the definition of role playing is…. I would argue that in science class even performing collaborative investigative activities like laboratory experiments could be consider a style of role play….. one without a set outcome, in fact the students would be discovering the outcome while they were involved in the role play, think of it like dramatic improv perhaps!
The use of immersive virtual worlds may be the future of providing these meaningful learning role plays in the science and math disciplines. Having students immersed in an investigation and even the possibility of stimulating their senses is an exciting idea indeed. I have often considered myself an advocate for experiential learning as I believe it provides purpose and real meaning to supplement student curriculum objectives. If that means performing a laboratory experiment, field work at a real world site or immersion in a virtual environment where students have the ability to use their visual, auditory and tactile senses then there may be some real opportunity for students to become engaged in what they are learning. Perhaps we have been and will continue to role play in science and mathematics, it was just a matter re-evaluating what role playing is in that context, and with virtually immersive environments becoming more possible students will able to experience their learning in even more ways in the future.

Often I think when we learn and teach about concepts in science and math we follow a more regimented structure to planning and curriculum delivery. We are less “free” to decide what is right and wrong when it comes to providing solutions to complex problems. Especially in math I think students often have difficulty mastering the numerical concepts because they have trouble relating to the content, they simply don’t understand why they are learning complex mathematical problems and how they are important for anything. Math being a tool is often taught from a theoretical perspective which is often advanced for young students who have no need for those concepts at that point in their lives. We see a bit more real world application example in the sciences as those disciplines often use mathematical tools to come to solutions to problems. Perhaps not using role playing techniques more often has contributed to this problem of students not relating to subject matter.

SL can be considered many things.  Since it is not a game and has no objective or goal then it can be whatever the user wants it to be.  If the user is looking to play and engage in social interactions simply for a neat way to waste time then that can be done.  Does that mean that there is no educational merit possible in SL.  I tend to think not.  With the diverse amount of options and opportunities available in SL you could use it meaningfully for alot of purposes.  Whether it be networking, business endeavours, or educational pursuits, it is all possible in SL. 

Multi user virtual environments becuase of their versatility and realistic interface, bring a fresh new component to learning in on online context. Students are more motivated to learn in these environments due to the life-like feel and the visual cues that stimulate the learning in a way that a traditional WebCT interface cannot accomplish.  When users feel like they are actually in the virtual environment motivation to learn can be increased through a desire to actually participate in the learning. Users have a sense that they are actually part of a learning community The ability of SL to allow users to communicate between either text chat or voice chat allows for plenty of instantaneous synchronous conversations to take which would be much less likely in other online environments.

The use of simulations and demonstrations in laboratories created in the virtual world can be used to augment the learning of students who prefer to learn visually and can actually instantly collaborate with peers while observing a demonstration in a virtually public environment. The immersed graphic nature of SL make it ideal for using detailed simulations that supports students learning using visual memory.  SL combines active engagement with the ease of online access.  It is also important to remember the merits of virtual experiments and demonstrations.  These allow students to conduct experiments, a repeated amount of times without using any materials or set up time, not to mention a virtual environment does not have any dangers associated with it ( except maybe that student will enjoy completing their work in SL so much that they won’t want to attend classes in the real world anymore!).   It will only be a matter of time before more and more educational techies get involved in this web 3.0 initiative!

Check out the video below to get an idea of some of the opportunities for learning science in SL.

Teaching science and math can at time seem to be a very challenging task. With all the theories and content to cover it can be difficult to create meaningful experiences for students to understand the importance of learning all the topics that educators need to cover. In traditional classrooms there simply is not enough time to always be able to produce lessons with content that can be presented to students with meaningful applications.
Take the example of learning about body systems, which is a large component of many biology classes. The amount of time that needs to spent not only on presenting written information concerning the system being discussed but it is often necessary to involve some real hands on activities that bring the learning discussed to “real life”, which often involves a dissection. The amount of time to prepare and actually complete the dissection can be huge, not to mention the costs of purchasing the specimens. With the relatively new advent of so many online virtual learning applications available on the internet students now have options to visualize a virtual representation of real world activities in a quick and often cost free manner. Saving time allows students to dedicate more time to actually visualizing much of the content that is often only presented in pictures or words in textbooks. This can create a more meaningful and stimulating educational experience for students and also allows teachers more time to cover more material.
As an example the Exploratorium, which is an online museum dedicated to science education among other things provides many online options for students to enhance their classroom learning through online experiences. There is an online tutorial of a cow’s eye dissection that is free to view, quick to access and allows for multiple viewing options at any time student feel interested to explore. There are diagrams, pdf instructions for conducting a real dissection and multimedia opportunities to supplement what students may have learned in their class. This example of visualization software has the potential to enhance and create a more “real” experience for students to learn about topics that they otherwise may have only had the time to discuss and/or read about in class. By creating more experiences for students that seem real there is potential to increase student motivation and interest in topics that may otherwise seem boring or rudimentary.
Giving students the opportunity to explore online applications helps them to understand why they learn the topics that are presented in class and when students feel there is a reason to understand something they in turn may more active learners rather than passive listeners. Check out the cow’s eye dissection webpage at http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/index.html to see an example of the power of visualization software and how it can work for your students!

Cow's Eye Dissection from Exploratorium

The issues facing teachers today are many and perhaps one issue that is becoming more common today than ever before surrounds technology use. Using technology in the classroom has always been a topic of interest but now with the advent of the knowledge economy information is so readily available that technology use is becoming more and more of a necessity in the classroom in order to prepare students for the real world. Teachers need to do their best to incorporate technology in order to keep up with the changing times, if for no other reason, for the sake of their students.
Specifically in regards to technology use I have found that there are a couple of major issues to consider. Many teachers seem to be concerned with what technologies are readily available to them in the classroom. Different classrooms and departments seem to have access to different amounts and types of technology. Teachers seeme to be concerned with who gets what and how fair access to these technologies can be administered. Obviously in many cases the school administration makes these types of decisions and at times some teachers may not feel the process is fair. Some teachers even go above and beyond expectations by buying their own technologies for their students. How can we make this process easier for teachers who may not have the personal funds available to do this? Would it be reasonable to give individual teachers their own budget in order to allow them the freedom to spend it on the technologies that they feel are most important for their classrooms? This may be more or less already be achieved through departmental budgets. Perhaps teachers should do more of their own fundraising with their students in order to increase funding for their classroom needs?
Another issue that is popular is that some teachers may feel obligated to use some technologies in their classroom even though they may be less than tech savy. Some teachers may not be interested or may not find it a beneficial use of their time to learn how to use technology if they don’t see how it directly improves student results. Can more professional development offered by school boards be the answer? It would be interesting to see how much funding is put into technological PD sessions and whether that funding is indeed helping not only teachers to learn how to use technology but also if that use of technology is of true benefit to their students. Also is too much technology a bad thing? Are teachers sacrificing teaching students about the fundamentals in certain topics by using technology to analyze data? This perhaps may be more detrimental to student learning as it may cause students may become dependent on technology to answer problems. Perhaps moderation is the best policy in this case alowwing students to complete tasks both using technology at times and in other cases pushing them towards completing their work the old fashioned way.
At the end of the day there are always going to be issues, there will never be a perfect solution to satisfy everyones needs, but as professionals it is necessary for teachers to be aware of the issues and do their best to over come them using sound judgement.

Interview 1
– teaching approx. 25 years, 3 different school boards mainly science and math courses
– earlier independent study project using computer in chemistry class involving temp probe and then graph the rates of reaction, computer class was interested in seeing what chemistry class was doing, even made a presentation to IBM in Toronto with the class
– sees software-hardware problems (incompatibility) as being a major hurdle in dealing with technology
– came to conclusions that sometime using technology was not worth the hassle as results from students were not worth the effort
– suggests maybe using technology sparingly and it may be best not to overuse it
– using technology may hinder students from understanding fundamental concepts as software will complete calculations rather than the students
– thinks technology is only given to certain areas like spec ed rather than made available to everyone equally
– likes the fact that some students will be able to have technology at their fingertips with ipods and cell phones, which include great features like stopwatches or timers
– would be interested in integrating online materials in regular class if the technology was available. Also sees it as a possibility to reach out to different types of learners
– thinks technology will become more and more of a necessity in the future, thinks there is no reason to fight it, it is a natural progression

Interview 2
– has been teaching for 4 years in the science and biology setting at the senior and grade 10 level
– teaches in an affluent area
– sees more opportunity for using technology in the physics classroom, and helps students at the grade 10 level focus and continue to be motivated in class
– uses mostly a laptop and projector to give presentations often, uses the videoscope to enlarge microscope eyepiece in biology
– finds he can learn quickly to use most technology and has normally not had an issue with spending too much time coming to understanding
– ETC including remotes that he has had trouble using even after taking time at PD sessions and has not directly been able use it in the classroom
– Is happy with the amount of technology available at the school and believes it is in part due to the support of his department head and principal who both encourage technology use
– technology is well received by applied or college level students, applies to their kinesthetic sense of learning
– has not noticed difference between males and females in response to using technology
– finds that students are often far more technologically advanced and can help him to use some types of technology
– online classrooms are seen as a benefit, especially for certain students who struggle in traditional pen and paper classrooms

Analysis
To complete this task I chose to interview two colleagues, both are science teachers at the same school but they are at different points in their careers. One has much experience and the other is still fairly new with only 4 years of experience. I chose to pick the two individuals especially for that reason as I wanted to compare any differences between ideas that they may have concerning the use of technology. I also was interested to see if the veteran teacher had changed his teaching style at all as technology has changed over his career. I conducted the interviews over skype and used an audio recording program to record the conversations to be transcribed later.
I focused both interviews around 6 main questions to which both respondents spent about 15 minutes discussing their opinions. The questions are:

1. How many years have you been teaching in the classroom?

2. Can you explain how you have specifically integrated technology into your classrooms and explain any benefits or flaws associated with those experiences?

3. When Integrating technology into your classroom have you found it to be worth the time you invested in learning about the technology? In other words did you see results from your students that were improved due to the use of the particular technology?

4. What conditions/materials are provided by your school that enable you to teach using technology?

5. Do you think there would be, or have you seen any different responses between boys and girls, or gifted and struggling students when using technology in the classroom?

6. If you could loan a portable computer to each of your students (laptop or notebook) would you create online materials to supplement your face to face course? What potential benefits or flaws do you see with doing this?

7. Do you find technology to be a necessity or a novelty?

After considering the information given by the two teachers I found in many cases they shared similar views on the issues that were presented. Both had explained how they integrated technology to varying degrees in their classrooms, and I found it interesting to note that the newer teacher used power point software and a projector to present his notes and lectures to the class. Perhaps something that is being done more frequently with new teachers as they have created their class notes with these powerful tools available to them at the start of their career. Both teachers mentioned that they have had trouble using technology in the classroom, however the new teacher mentioned it to a lesser degree stating that he generally learns to use the new technology quickly. Both are relatively happy with the amount of technology available at their school however the experienced teacher does mention there is some favouritism given to certain
departments of the school. Neither teacher mentioned any differences in technology use between genders but the newer teacher does point out his belief that its use does help to motivate struggling students who prefer hands on activities. Both also consider technology to be of great value to the classroom, and look for opportunities to use it in the future. It was interesting to note that the more experienced teacher seemed a bit more concerned about the time it takes to learn how to use technology compared the benefits that it offers.

Without realy doing any research I suppose using technology in a classroom is best used when it allows students to have a better undersanding of a topic that is being discussed. For example I have had students in the past who had trouble understanding the 3d shapes of molecules. I would not even want to imagine how hard it would be for them to understand without very detailed pictures in their textbooks (which is arguably also a type of technology).

Now it is possible to show 3d images of these molecules using digital software something that at the very least gets students attention (technology increasing student motivation? hmmmmm…)! This use of technology is not new….. it is simply a video derivation of another form of technology that has been used in chemistry classrooms for many years… the molecular model! In its day it was a great tool and actually still is. Just because we have new, fancy digital applications to use today doesn`t mean that the older types of technology have become obsolete. After all we still use ballpoint pens nearly everyday, right? That is also a piece of technology isn’t it? Most likely pretty high tech when it was first mass produced. So to get back to the digital imaging of molecular structures let’s not also forget that showing a digital image may also be a much quicker option to teach students visually about chemical shapes. Where as having them create models may take considerably more time. That brings us to another point that makes technology useful…. it can save us time. So to quickly summarize good use of technology in a classroom would facilitate at least two things:
– it would improve student understanding by manipulating the learning environment to involve different techniques for knowlege delivery
– it would improve student learning generally by lowering the time it takes for students to acquire knowledge and /or perhaps decreasing preparation time for teachers which allows them to focus on other areas that students may be struggling with

Any others that come to mind?

Imagine how hard it might be to explain the information in the following video without having the use of the molecular image of DNA?

My first real experience with with educational technology that really impacted how I learned was my first experience taking an online course during third year of my undergraduate degree. It changed the way I wanted to learn and how I learned. It helped me to see the power of technology and how it can create opportunities.
As I was a commuter during my undergrad years (I drove about 30 minutes to the university each day from my family home) I didn`t have the pleasure of having the lecture halls, instructors and teaching assistants at my close call every day. If I returned home after lectures and had problems with the readings I was assigned that day then it was not possible to get immediate help.
It was in my third year of undergrad that I enrolled in my first online course. I enjoyed the flexibility it provided me with as it allowed me to do my work from home. Also being able to get help through an online environment was a big help. I also remember being more actively engaged in my work as I enjoyed using my computer to learn, it provided me with a different venue to learn, different than just listening to lectures, taking notes and reading textbooks. The online environment allowed more diverse applications for learning and provided different and more opportunities for discussion and evaluation. I cherished these new options and looked for more opportunities to take online courses. I continued to take online courses when offered in my fourth year of studies and I have also since completed 2 additional professional development courses since becoming a science teacher during the summer months.
These experiences have also contributed to the fact that I am completing my MET. I have developed a real appreciation for technology and what it can do for me. I am very interested in understanding how I can now improve my pedagogy using technology not just my own learning.

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