Critical Issue: Technology: A Catalyst for Teaching and Learning in the Classroom (Week 12)

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te600.htm

Technology is such an important part of our society that we would never consider that the world would be better with less technology. Even the teachers that are scared to death of using any kind of technology in their classrooms will admit that it is the future and the future in now. So that being said, technology has only one way to go - forward. The question is “how will our growing society keep up with the demands that the business sector put on education”? The business community grows at an exponential rate as compared to the growth of technology of the education community.We live in a technology age that demands that teachers teach students to solve complex problems and problem solve. No longer are teachers just simply teaching how to add or subtract but rather we are teaching student to think about how it relates to other things in our day-to-day.

Teaching is changing and, in many ways, becoming a more difficult job because of increasingly numerous contradictory expectations, including the following:

• We are living in an age of information overload with the expectation that students will learn high-level skills such as how to access, evaluate, analyze, and synthesize vast quantities of information. At the same time, teachers are evaluated by their ability to have students pass tests that often give no value to these abilities.
• Teachers are expected to teach students to solve complex problems that require knowledge necessary across many subject areas even as they are held accountable for the teaching and learning of isolated skills and information.
• Teachers are expected to meet the needs of all students and move them toward fulfillment of their individual potential even as they are pressured to prepare students for maximum performance on high-stakes assessment tests that are the primary measure of student and school success.

There are several reasons K–12 educational organizations continue to agonize about how much and in what ways technology use in schools is appropriate. Their concerns include the following:

• Some uses of technology may add value while some may become a distraction for students.
• Technology is only one variable among many others that also need to be addressed.
• Teacher competency in the use of technology is often problematic.
• Students and teachers have unclear, and often inconsistent, expectations of technology use.

It is no secret that technology must be used appropriately in order to achieve maximum benefits and there are particular ways in which technology must support the educational process - it must not exist as it's own entity and teachers must be given plentiful training/professional development.

Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement (Week 10)

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/methods/technlgy/te800.htm

This was a very informative article regarding the use of technology to improve student achievement. Among the topics of this article, it discussed the amount of money being filtered into the field of technology to come up with more up-to-date materials, and many ways to improve students’ achievement through the advances of technology.

Many different types of technology have been developed to support and enhance learning. Everything from video content and digital moviemaking to laptop computing and handheld technologies have been used in classrooms, and new uses of technology such as podcasting are constantly emerging. Different technologies deliver different kinds of content and serve different purposes in the classroom. For example, word processing and e-mail promote communication skills; database and spreadsheet programs promote organizational skills and graphing skills; and modeling software promotes the understanding of science and math concepts.

Some of the ways administration, technology planning teams, and teachers can improve student achievement through technology are as follows:

• Determine key aspects of national and state student learning standards for the school or district to focus on as educational goals.
• Identify specific curricula, practices, skills, attitudes, and policies that can be enhanced through the use of technology to foster significant improvement in the character and quality of student learning. (For example, if the district is interested in improving students' writing performance, word processing with an emphasis on revision and editing should become a salient part of the curriculum across disciplines.)
• Ensure that teachers are aware of the value of technology for all students, especially those considered at risk of educational failure.
• Ensure that all students have equitable access to effective uses of technology.
• Ensure that new, research-based approaches to professional development are consistent with the standards.
• Coordinate technology implementation efforts with core learning goals, such as improving students' writing skills, reading comprehension, mathematical reasoning, and problem-solving skills.
• Collaborate with colleagues to design curricula that involve students in meaningful learning activities in which technology is used for research, data analysis, synthesis, and communication.
• Encourage students to collaborate on projects and to use peer assessment to critique each other's work.
• Create opportunities for students to share their work publicly--through performances, public service, open houses, science fairs, and videos. Use these occasions to inform parents and community members of the kinds of learning outcomes the school is providing for students.
• Learn how various technologies are used today in the world of work, and help students see the value of technology application.
• Collaborate to create a technology plan for the school or district to include students at risk.
• Set one, three, and five-year goals for improving student learning through technology.
• Develop a technology budget to cover costs associated with hardware, software, maintenance, professional development, technical support, etc.
  

Reading Response for Week 8

http://caret.iste.org/index.cfm?StudyID=337&fuseaction=studySummary

The article titled “Does it Compute? The Relationship Between Educational Technology and Student Achievement in Mathematics” was a wonderful article. It has great insight as to how students are achieving much higher Math Standards since the use of technology has been introduced into the classroom. The results showed that higher mathematics scores were related to adequate access to up-to-date computer technology, allowing for high-order concepts such as learning games and real-world computer simulations and applications, and a teacher that has been properly trained in technology. Whether you were rich, poor, white, black, rural or urban, all students have the same chance to learn when given the same opportunity. The article posed four questions that helped sum up the findings in this research study.

1. How can technology influence student academic performance?
2. How can technology improve student motivation, attitude, and interest in learning?
3. How can technology help to prepare students for the workforce?
4. What strategies result in effective instructional application of technology?

Each question gave many researched answers backed up by evidence that I can summarize like this. Technology can improve student performance when it has been directly linked to the curriculum objectives, allows for student collaboration, can adjust for students’ needs and prior knowledge, understanding, should be integrated into daily class routines, and provides opportunities for students to design and implement hands-on projects that extend the curriculum content.

Student motivation, attitude, and interest in learning can be improved by students using computer applications that: adjust problems and tasks to maximize students’ experience of success, produce, demonstrate, and share their work with peers, teachers, and parents; and use challenging, game-like programs, and technology applications designed to develop basic skills and knowledge.

Technology helps prepare students for the workforce when they learn to use and apply applications used in the world of work, such as word processors, spreadsheets, computer-aided drawing, website development programs, and the Internet. If they learn to use these types of programs, they will have an easier time finding a job because of their skills, not what grade they completed in school.

I had some difficultly with the last question because, while reading this article, my personal question in mind was, “How can you use technology in your classroom if you do not have the support of available hardware, networks, and a working server?” That is exactly how they answered question 4. They say that to have effective technology applications involves a process for continuously incorporating research findings into instructional strategies and curriculum planned, but to incorporate new research, you need to have a system that can handle the updated materials.

My next question would be….."How do you get around the lack of resources for the use of technology and still incorporate the new research findings into your classroom?"

http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/math/ma200.htm

I found this article to be fairly informative and enlightening The issue poised in this article was the fact that there is so much valuable and motivating mathematic resources for K-12 educators and students, but how difficult it was to locate, access, and meaningfully integrate these materials into the classroom instruction. What the author did was to research and provide a critical and informative summary of Internet sites and descriptive contents; presented some educator insights on providing Internet resources for students; commented on the quality of Internet sites and lesson plans; and discussed how many educators were not buying into the use of Internet-based mathematics materials.

It has been about 11 years since this article was written, and much has developed and been improved upon regarding teacher education, and the location, accessibility, knowledge and the integration of Internet-Based Mathematics into classroom instruction. A good current example is the ASU West Graduate Technology Program where many students, including myself, are learning and being trained in the use of technology, and accessing current Internet-sites, for application in the classroom. I can now envision how much easier it is today, then it was in 1995, but at the same time it is still challenging to integrate Internet-based mathematics into lesson plans since the knowledge and number of Internet-sites has increased dramatically. As I just completed the assignment for “25 Internet Resources for Mathematics and Science”, I realized how demanding and challenging it was to prepare it; but, at the same time I now have a valuable source of resources that I can quickly access, update, and use in my classroom. Technology can play a critical role in the classroom if used effectively, and over the years more support has developed from both educators and students.

Week 6 Readings

http://news.com.com/Mapping+a+path+for+the+3D+Web/2100-1025_3-6069459.html?tag=cd.top

http://www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1451&issue=feb_06

“With the spread of online games, virtual worlds and services like Google Earth and MySpace.com, people may soon be spending more time, communicating more and shopping more in complex 3D Web environments.” This quote is about the only thing I really understood. I will be perfectly honest; I really had to read this first article serveral times because it was difficult to understand. I understand that the chat type rooms of today and web based games or virtual games are all part of this growing computer form called 3D online or metaverse. I also understand that part of this new “lingo” of 3D online would come from what we have learned about Google Earth. If someone could please give me a simpler definition of what this 3D online (metaverse) means I would appreciate it.

The second article was a great article and put a lot of things into perspective for me. Instead of always taking the traditional way of teaching, introduce smart boards, computers, group work, hands-on activities, and “student-lead” instruction. The teacher at the beginning of the article used her computerized whiteboard to model the graph for the class, and allow the students to demonstrate the learning in a new way other than pencil and paper. I need to use the models presented in this article in my classroom. I feel like I use them to a point but not frequently.

Response for Week 4

http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/nj_math_coalition/pguide/pguide.html
http://newton.nap.edu/books/030907276X/html/17.html

As an educator in a Catholic School, I have my own definition of standards. They are used to hold us accountable for what we are teaching in our classrooms. It also requires the schools, districts, and other staff to be held accountable for what is going on in their school that is helping students succeed through academic achievement and learning. We follow the same standards every other school follows, only we have the added standards for Religion. The standards that have been written for the Diocese of Phoenix are taken right from the state standards. Our school is going through an accreditation process this year, so we are using our standards more this year than ever before, but, they shouldn’t be only used in a time where you are being checked up on. They should be the driving force behind everything you do in your classroom, from the material you teach, the way you teach it, and the assessment upon completion. They are the heart and soul of any objective of any lesson you come up with. They are also to be used to assess student mastery of the subject content.

Reading Response for Week 2

http://www.west.asu.edu/achristie/675wq.html
http://www.sedl.org/work/historical/tap.html
http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/constructivism/
http://www.west.asu.edu/achristie/construct/Characteristics%20of%20Constructivist%20Learning.pdf

As I read the above articles I thought a lot about my own classroom and how I could use the ideas presented in my classroom. The article titled Constructivism as a Paradigm for Teaching and learning is a wealth of knowledge on how to allow students to think for themselves instead of always doing the thinking for them. It has some wonderful explanations on how to implement this type of teaching into your classroom. I know for myself it is hard to let go of the role of teacher and allow students to take ownership of their learning and eventually turn into their own teachers. For a teacher to stand back and be a facilitator instead of the dictator is hard to do. I know in my classroom, with the children being so young it is hard for me to allow the students to set the pace of their learning. I know what I have to get done with in a school year and if they don’t “get it” after so long, it time to move on. Allowing the students to at least take what they know, build on it by questioning and experiencing, they will have a better understanding of the material when it comes time to move on. When students set their own pace for learning they will be more successful. Using WebQuests is a great way of bringing technology into the classroom and also allows for students to create their own learning environment.