Watch and Learn…

I watched the videos for LE 2,3,4,5 and 7 as my areas of interest are primary-secondary science and teacher training. I have attached a table summarizing the key ideas, my opinion of whether it was good use of technology, highlighting main issues and identifying the prevalent questions.

The main question that arose for me was in LE4 when the experienced classroom teacher emphasized how technology “equalizes the playing field” so I ask: Does technology have the potential to be the great equalizer in education?

When we think in terms of ESL, learning styles, blended learning (& asynchronous response time) and differentiation opportunities perhaps technology does have the potential to do so. However, what about students who are not digital natives? What about the students who prefer to not use technology? What about students who have parents who do not want them to use the internet, ever.? Constructivist learning can be designed effectively without technology so is it essential for our students to use educational technologies at schools? Are we disadvantaging them by not integrating?

In the context that I work in presently, my teachers have no technology to integrate and I believe that there is still a lot of authentic learning happening, however if we were to be inundated with technology tomorrow I believe that the playing field would not be even (some of our teachers have never used a computer and the teachers actually voted to keep mobile phones out of the school) for the students due to the huge range of teacher skills and the huge range of student IT familiarity. Add in the fact that some families refuse their children access to the internet and you can see how the picture gets fuzzier and fuzzier.

To answer my own question I would say yes and no- technology can be a great equalizer but it depends on the context.

What do you think?

Video Case Studies- Summary Table

(Video Case Studies Summary Table  click here for the pdf version)