The first 10 days of the course moved very quickly from introductions to our early experiences with digital technology, conceptional challenges, unpacking assumptions and finally examining video cases to help flesh out our perspectives of what and how educational technology can be used in math and science classrooms, and any classroom. I posted my thoughts on each of these topics to the course discussion board and I further benefited by reading my colleagues postings, their comments to my postings and my comments to their postings. More details on my postings for these subjects are presented in the “Framing” page of this blog.
Introductions:
In the introductions, I discovered that I may be the lone post-secondary administrator voice in the course (hopefully not a lone voice in the wilderness!) as the majority of my colleagues are K-12 teachers. This is familiar territory for me in the MET program, and I will present a totally different perspective to my colleagues throughout the course. I trust they will listen and understand this view as I always look at a students’ journey from K through 12 to post-secondary to graduation and employment.
Auto e-ography:
My early experiences with digital technology go back to the early 1970’s when I was given an electronic calculator; a real game changer compared to my older brother who made it through high school with a slide rule. I experimented with many different technologies over the years as they appeared and they have all been integrated into our everyday lives to the point that we don’t think of them as technology, but as tools and widgets. This was a great exercise to spend some time thinking about these early experiences and to present them as an auto e-ography
Conceptional Challenges:
Conceptional challenges are something that I had never thought of previously as being important. But as I went through the course resources, read the postings from my colleagues and started to reflect on my own situation, I realized that yes there are a lot of challenges out there that people have related to math and science that are important to identify and to talk about. For me as a Geographer, I soon realized the conceptional challenges around maps and how they are used to portray the round earth were important to identify.
Unpacking Assumptions:
In the unpacking assumptions exercise, I was able to quickly identify a few examples based on my post-secondary experience to illustrate what I think are good uses of technology in the math and science classroom. My initial thoughts are to not get caught up in the WOW factor and use it just because we can and feel that we need to use technology just because we are teaching in a math, science or technology course or program. I like to recommend to instructors to consider using technology in situations where they struggle to get difficult concepts across to students. Also from a practical post-secondary perspective, to consider using technologies that are applicable and relevant that the jobs graduates will be moving into.
Video Case Analysis:
Clickers and calculators are a couple of basic technologies that I looked at in two of the cases. Both teachers/instructors were very confident in their use of these technologies and to the benefits to the students. Both of these technologies helped tremendously with the engagement of the students and the teacher/instructor in the classroom. I felt these tools helped challenge conceptions that math is not relevant and lecture format is boring and not engaging.
Onto week three and at home interviews.