Evonne Tutkaluk

Barab & Duffy (2000) insist that technology itself would not bring about the transformation of a school into a knowledge-building community, it is the teacher strategies that make a major different in the extent to which students engage in collaborative knowledge building.  Computer technology, as in CSILE, enables students to share knowledge with one another.  Schools need to take advantage of what technology can offer, and restructure themselves into communities that promote knowledge-building environment, otherwise the technology (such as CSILE) may be largely wasted.

The collaborative culture of knowledge building and cutting edge tools creates a synergy of enhanced pedagogic interactions and outcomes, resulting in innovations in ideas and in subject visualizations.  The knowledge building theory creates opportunities for dynamic curriculum design and leveraging ideas for collaborative innovation in academic communications.

Learning involves building an increasingly rich implicit understanding of the world in which they use the tools and of the tools themselves.  Learning, thinking, and knowing are relations among people engaged in activity in, with, and arising from the socially and culturally structured world.  The development of knowledgeable skills and the development of identities are both central to the community of practice.

– In situativity theory, meaning and identities are constructed within interactions.  The construction of these meanings and identities is greatly influenced by the broader context in which they reside.  This perspective expands previous notions of constructivism in which it was the subjective world, not the individual constructor, who was bracketed off and treated as that which was being constructed.  It also expands notions of situativity theory in which it was the meaning of that which was learned, and not the individual doing the learning, that was described as being constituted in the situation.  The combination of individual and environment lead to an ecology of learning that can be integrated into the practices of schools.

– To address the limitations of school learning, as well as the abstract, decontextualized, and individualistic nature of school learning, is to design practice fields.  However, practice fields fail to connect learners to the community.  It is necessary for learners to develop a life-long relation between persons and their place and participation in the communities of practice, as both interact reciprocally through a process of legitimate peripheral participation with the context of a community of practice.  The key for communities of practice is to give students a legitimate role (task) in society through community participation / membership.  It is the hope of Barab & Duffy that educators continue to share their work that is contextualized in learning environments that are predicated on notions of communities of practice and, just as importantly, the individual learner.

As I look back at what I have experienced and learned throughout this course, I feel that although I may be limited by the lack of math resources in the school, I have found the potential of digital technologies in a math classroom. I have learned what types of technology work and what doesn’t and I feel better prepared to assess which technologies would be better suited than others.  Accordingly, I understand what elements of technology would be successful in a math classroom.

Most importantly, I feel that my perspective on technology use in a math classroom has changed. As Barab & Duffy (2000) state:

The power of technology to change one’s intellectual viewpoint is one of its greatest contributions, not merely to knowledge, but to something even more important: understanding…

Through this course, I am more conscious of situating my math lessons in anchored instruction and authentic learning.  At the beginning of the new term in February (at my school) I felt that I needed to apply what I learned in this course to my teaching.  I made a conscious decision to have more collaborative work where students can problem-solve together and work as a team to construct their own learning.

As I end this reflection, I am grateful for the experiences and learning I have had in this course from looking at WISE, Jasper to SKI.  I am eager to see how I can better apply my new found knowledge in my math lessons; to see students become excited about math and how technology will play a role in all of this.  Thanks to this course and the MET program, I feel I am very well equipped to make appropriate decisions regarding my lesson planning and developing authentic learning tasks for my students.

Thank you!

References

Barab, S., & Duffy, T. (2000). From practice fields to communities of practice. In D. Jonassen and S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical foundations of learning environments. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.