What Have I Done?

Examining how technology is implemented in provincial curriculum documents, and how technology is used in school districts.

Screen Shot 2014-07-09 at 9.13.14 AM

Technology in several ways, shapes, and forms, has been present in classrooms. Remembering overhead projectors, televisions on tall black carts, or eighty-five millimetre projectors with cassette soundtracks, technology has been used to convey information to students in multiple modalities. However, what are we supposed to do with the technology in the classroom?

One opinion is that “… unfortunately what happens is, despite billions of dollars spent on technology … teachers end up using technology to facilitate the same kind of projects they’ve always done. And that’s not good enough; we’ve got to aspire to something more than that. Tech doesn’t mean ‘do everything that we did yesterday, just flashier’. It’s not about putting a piece of clip art on a cover and thinking that you’ve brought tech” is a quote from page 10 of the document “Young Canadians in a Wired World,” which examines technology use and implementation in the classroom.

In the modern English classroom, C.J. Bonk contends that “[l]earners no longer passively read books or listen to a TV or radio program. In this age, they create their own wikibooks; they produce their own text with Current TV; and they generate their own radio programs with syndicated podcasts in their personal blogs or online discussion groups.” (The World is Open, 205) Further, Shank explains the “…four specific uses of computers and the Internet that are most prevalent among youth: communication, social networking, content creation, and multimedia entertainment.” (Urban Youth, 3) Thus, are we taking the opportunity to integrate these technologies in our classrooms?

For the purpose of this inquiry project, I have taken a top down approach, and have examined how technologies are implemented into provincial and state curriculum documents, and how are school districts and teachers using technology in the classroom. To post my results, I will be using WordPress as a modality to share resources and findings with the inquiry group. Further, I will be using Twitter for three purposes:

  1. to create dialogue with teacher candidates around opinions technology
  2. to share information and resources about technology in the classroom, as well as curriculum documents
  3. to demonstrate how Twitter and media’s like WordPress can be used in the classroom to engage students in an online dialogue. My hope for the presentation on Monday is to have everyone signed up to Twitter, and to use the hashtag #ubcinquiry to create an online dialogue during the presentation.

@inquiryubc

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Justin Bolivar e-portfolio

Spam prevention powered by Akismet