There were two issues which came to the forefront during the analysis of my interview and through reading and reflecting on the shared interviews. The first is a question of support for teachers wanting to use technology in the classroom, and the second is a question of whether or not we can actually measure the effectiveness of the use of technology in the classroom.
Support for teachers
Supporting teachers and students in their use of technology is part of my job. I am allocated time to do this, it is not just something expected on top of my teaching load. This makes the question of support for teachers wanting to use technology quite important to me. When I hear that teachers feel unsupported in training, pro-d and funding, I nod my head in agreement, because I feel the same way: unsupported in training, pro-d and funding. What was surprising was even the experienced, tech-savvy teachers feel this way, but maybe not in all three areas. My interviewee said he felt he kept up to day through what he was doing on his own, yet he felt he was limited in what he could do because of the lack of funding for new technology and the lack of time committed to maintaining the existing technology. As, one reader commented, “if the tech savvy teacher feels they need support, where does that leave us?” I am not alone in seeing this as an issue; TW also saw a trend in poor support hampering technology use by teachers.
When I see Conrad Wolfram (2010) talk about turning the math curriculum inside out, that we should be teaching math using computational tools I agree with him and then go but where is the support networks, where are the technologically competent math teachers, where is the time to get the math teachers techno-confidence up to a point where they will be comfortable in a classroom where the computerized device is the main tool being used, not paper and pencils. In my mind schools and school districts, education as a whole, do poor jobs of supporting the technological needs of the teachers. When talking about supporting technology, schools, school districts, education as a whole, tend to talk about how much is spent on computers and software. They do not talk about constant collegial sharing sessions for teachers; they do not talk about built in time during the day for all teachers to keep current in the latest technologies. They sometimes talk about teams they create to support teachers, but with very few exceptions these teams are made up of full time teachers who are expected to support other teachers on top of teaching a full complement of students.
This issue is, of course, not unique to Science and Math, but, as it seems Science and Math tend to use more specialized equipment and applications, the issue of not having suitable support is greater here than in the other subject areas. As well, it is our scientists and mathematicians in the real world that are seen as the heavy duty technology users. As such we need to work to ensure our students are experiencing the best possible education in science and math, that they are not just learning “computation by hand” as Wolfam put it.
Can we measure effectiveness of technology
Can we measure the effectiveness of using technology in the classroom is a question that has come into my mind as I reflect on the interview and the other shared interviews. Teachers do not have time to conduct their own original research into whether their teaching benefits from the use of technology. So how can they tell their students learning is improved by using technology? This is a good question, and one that I may pursue further. One thing does come to mind – technology use should change the learning experience of the learner, make it more dynamic, more collegial, less mundane and remove repetitive rote learning.
Another question arose as well – should we even be trying to measure the effectiveness of technology? If we are exposing students to 21st century learning we should be having them use 21st tools. I wonder if debates raged when ball point pens were first introduced? I experienced a situation where I was required to write using a fountain pen even though ball point pens were already well established (and the only people buying fountain pens were parents, for their children). When our family moved to a different province I never wrote with my blotchy old fashioned fountain pen again. Are we holding on to teaching with familiar, well established tools because they are familiar and well established? When people talk about advantages to reading from paper over reading from a screen do they have years and years of reading one way as a bias? This is another question that I may pursue further.
Wolfram (2010). Teaching kids real math with computers. TEDGlobal. Retrieved from www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_math_with_computers.html
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