The auto-eography discussion has been generating a lot of diverse experiences with technology! It’s been so interesting to read about how some of my colleagues have transitioned from little to no technology when they were young learners to where our world is now.
I’ve become more aware that I often think of using technology as how can the teacher, rather than the students, use technology. In the discussion connected to my original post, there has been a lot of healthy discussion about technology as a substitution and if/how technology should be used. I think our personal learning theories and frameworks have a strong impact on how we want to include technology in our classrooms.
Technology as a substitution
If we examine just direct instruction, technology has many roles, but I don’t think that the cost is worth the effort if the learning effectiveness is at the same level. This cost may come from the technology, learning how to use it, and the amount of time it takes to orient students to it. I use the SAMR model as a shortcut to decide if technology would be useful in a situation or not. If it only results in a substitution, it’s not worth it.
“In terms of SAMR model, I would not dismiss the substitution. Everything has its place, even when we buy a new sofa because of the colour, it does have its purpose, although not fundamental.”
— Natasha Boksic, ETEC 524 course instructor (Summer 2019)
This commentary about the potential use of substitution from Professor Boksic has been challenging my original thinking. Perhaps I’ve been neglecting how using technology impacts learners and their feeling of learning. Regardless, the SAMR model is not my preferred framework for the selection, design, and application of technology. I much prefer the SECTIONS framework because it facilitates a more nuanced and critical approach to justifying the use of a tool.
Technology integrated into assessment
Some of the most recent discussion is tied to using technology in assessment to build digital skills. This is definitely important and I wonder about how the big ideas of a discipline impact these choices.
As an example, I’ll share what I think would be two big ideas and technology choices in a Careers Exploration course:
- Career development is lifelong: in Ontario, this course is open so students in it may be interested in a variety of pathways. Regardless, there may be a time when students are not affiliated with an educational institution and will not have access to the same resources.
- Leverage resources that are available to the public (e.g., open education resources, MOOCs, library resources, government resources)
- Orientation and transition to post-secondary education can start earlier: a challenge I’ve observed that students have is that they aren’t sure what resources are available to them when they are in post-secondary education. As well, the resume and cover letter activities I’ve seen (in 2019) are the same as what I got as a student. When my students showed me their resume assignments, I was so annoyed that they had not been given examples of resumes or access to useful resources!
- University and College career centres often have great resources. A task could be to get students search: [post-secondary institution] career centre / resume resources / cover letter example and see what comes up
- This can help students recognize that there are resources available at this level that can also be freely accessed
Tiered assessments
With the push for authentic assessments and having students engage in multiple methods of expression, I’m still leaning towards tiered (by weight) assessment. I’ve never had the opportunity to implement this, but I imagine it working something like this:
- Higher weighted assessments – students can choose the method of expression: Students can stay in their comfort zone while working on whatever the assignment is.
- Lower weighted assessments – students must choose a method of expression they would not normally pick: The lower weight encourages exploration and should emphasize that trying new things is positive.
A challenge with multiple methods of expression is the teaching and learning of the digital skills. Not everyone has a production background or access to specialty software. In this case, it would be really helpful to leverage the community (e.g., media arts or communication technology teachers) as well as the internet.
Current thoughts
I’m excited for the Week 2 discussions because we’re exploring alternate conceptions. This will be a good opportunity to think about the big ideas in Chemistry and Mathematics and how that informs technology tool selection. Moving into Week 2, I want to think more about what technology looks like in the classroom (what the teacher does, what the students do, how students engage in activity/assessment) and how my personal learning theory and frameworks connect back to this.