When I think about using technology in the math and science classroom, my mind shoots back to my own schooling experience where we had to march down to a computer lab to research science topics. This brings me to my starting point: technology use in the classroom todays needs to flow seamlessly within the learning environment. It shouldn’t require an entire class to disrupt their learning to enter a room full of technology. It should be managed in a way where it is available to students in a way that seems natural and not a departure from the ordinary. Good technology use should takes risks. Best practices aren’t magically incubated in some distant laboratory and implemented with great success. Educators must try, fail and improvise in order to find out how to most effectively use the tools at their disposal. Technology must provide opportunity for differentiation. Whether that is a slightly different assignment option or an avenue for further study. Technology should be flexible enough to effectively scaffold instruction for all students. Technology should be taught. We can’t go on assuming kids have an excellent understanding of technology just because they have grown up around it. Proper implementation of technology requires students to be shown how to use it, to the student’s full potential. Lastly, technology shouldn’t merely be a replacement for the current status quo. Too many times we replace lined paper with Google Docs simply because we can. Making a replacement is fine as long as there are actual educational benefits.
While not exhaustive, that’s my current list of what constitutes good technology use. This is far from being a concrete list, and will undoubtedly grow throughout the coming weeks of this course.
Hi, Caleb!
I think you that you have a great list started here with many valuable areas.
I was actually reading ahead for ETEC510 and I came across this list of how schools react in unideal ways to technological innovation. Mouza & Lavigne (2013) divided schools into three categories:
Condemning – react only to the RISKS of technology and not to the benefits
Co-Opting – Focus on using technology to SUPPORT the existing structures
Marginalizing – Small boutiques of innovations (certain teachers use it, others don’t)
When we limit technology by using it simply to replace an existing structure, we aren’t using it to it’s full potential. If technology is to have a transformative effect, it needs to be placed into the hands of the teachers and students and allowed to reinvent the status quo, not simply recreate it. That ties in really well with your point about how technology takes risks. Many teachers are uncomfortable with the ambiguity and lack of control you can sometimes feel when things don’t work correctly, but if we want our students to learn by doing and learn from their mistakes, we can’t be afraid to put those practices on display in front of them in a safe environment. Whenever the technology doesn’t work perfectly in class, I always say to the students, “Alright, it’s time for a technological adventure!” They learn from these experiences as well, and, in fact, I’d rather they learn from technology breaking in class than have to face it on their own when we don’t have our community around to support us.
I also loved how you advocated for technology education. Yes, our students are digital natives, but that doesn’t mean that they have a perfect knowledge of how all technology works or how it can best be used in the classroom. A bit of instruction goes a long way!
Thanks for a great post!
-Jonathan-
Mouza, C., & Lavigne, N. C. (2013). Introduction to emerging technologies for the classroom: A learning sciences perspective. In Emerging technologies for the classroom (pp. 1-12). Springer New York.
Hi Caleb,
You point on seamless integration resonates with me. When I was at school, we had to go to specific laboratories where lecture-specific technology was provided (e.g. computer lab, lab for learning languages). But today, with the availability of mobile tools all around us, this is not needed any more. Technology can and should be smoothly integrated into the classroom.
There is a trend called “BYOD – bring you own device”. This means that employees are allowed and motivated to bring their own mobile tools (laptops, smartphone) to work and to use it for work purposes. Maybe this is the vision: We don’t need any special equipment any more, but kids can use their own devices e.g. to work on math tasks in small group in the classroom. Sure, not all kids will have own devices, but those who have will be much more familiar with their own tools. Besides, the own tools are normally quite up-to-date, in contrast to tools maintained by schools 🙂
Elske
Hi Caleb,
I think that the five points you came up with are all very important. I agree that technology should be taught and I think this point is often forgotten. We can’t assume that all students have the same skill level or access to technology at home and are being unfair in doing this. I find at my school that we are all using different levels of technology in our classrooms and different programs within that. I would like to have more consistency as I think this would help the students to increase their skills.
Thanks
Kathryn
Hey Jonathan, Elkse and Kathryn,
Thanks for your replies! It’s neat to see so much agreement that we still teach technology to students. In my recent conversations with teachers in my district the options have been very mixed, with not a lot of teachers seeing the value in ‘wasting time’ teaching things that students are assumed to know.