My initial interest in technology was driven by my students. Teaching 6th graders made it very clear that the future of public education in is technology. My students showed a natural inclination to use technology, and have grown up using technology as a means for entertainment. What I hoped to accomplish in completing my degree was to learn about educational technologies, resources, and strategies that I could share with my students. However, over the past year I have learned about more than just how to use technology in the classroom. I have learned about establishing a community online, using virtual experiences to teach about the real world, and how to think more like a computer. Striving to meet the AECT standards also allowed me to reflect on my teaching practice, prepare for future challenges, and rethink how technology is utilized in the classroom.
During my first two years of teaching I spent a lot of time reflecting on student performance: assessment data, learning goals, and classroom behavior. When I reflected on my own practice it was to determine whether my lessons were effective in teaching the material. I would ask myself questions like, “Did I present the information in a way that was easy to understand, did I use enough practice problems, did I challenge all my students?” I would look up videos of alternative strategies that could be used to solve a problem, or different algorithms that could be used to complete an operation, or harder problems for my students to do. I used technology as a means to improve my practice. However, over the past year I have grown to see technology as a teaching assistant almost as if it were another adult in the classroom. The TPACK model of technology integration reasons that technology is the future tool of educational conveyance in the same way the pen and paper were in the decades previously. (Koehler et. al., 2011). This is demonstrated through my creation of multimedia learning environments such as the math puzzles and fractions units I created using Google Sites and Blackboard. These online learning environments were designed to allow students the freedom to explore webresources freely in order to learn about a given topic, communicate in a community of online learners to troubleshoot problems and negotiate solutions, and develop technological literacy skills. These learning environments will aid future learners by providing remedial, problem solving, and technology practice for my students.
I have also prepared resources to help educate my fellow staff members on how they, too, can learn to implement technology effectively in the classroom. In my past teaching experience I was a teacher leader and member of the Instructional Leadership Team (ILT). On the ILT I recognized that technology was a resource on which the county was spending a significant amount of money, but that was only used in certain classrooms. One of the biggest forces of resistance was that many experienced teachers felt they had never been trained to use many educational technologies, or that they training they had been given was insufficient. This sentiment is repeated in the research, which shows that of the 46% of school districts that invested in new hardware in 2015, only about 28% also invested heavily technology support staff to aid teacher implementation, and only 38% increased their budget for professional development on the new technology (Schaffhauser, 2016). Therefore my Needs Assessment and School Technology Plan both address this lack of training for teaching professionals. I also created a professional development resource to help familiarize my future colleagues with online tools, researched best practices, and literature outlining the importance of integrating technology into the classroom regularly. The Classroom Resources website I created includes a page of Teacher Resources that have articles about the most updated research into technology integration. Topics range from the benefits of the “flipped flipped” classroom (Schneider et. al., 2013), information on differentiated, individualized, and personal learning (Basye, 2016), reasoning behind the effectiveness of the ISTE standards (Stoeckl, 2016), as well as evidence supporting the use of technology to teach all the elementary subject areas (Piper et. al., 2016); (SRI International, 2013); (Taylor & Duran, 2006); (Huneycutt, 2013). I hope to share these resources with my colleagues to develop a school-wide technology implementation plan that will improve practice and encourage reluctant teachers to properly integrate technology.
Proper technology integration occurs when students are able to harness the vast libraries of information that technology can provide, navigate technology-based learning environments, recognize bias in online information, participate in educational communities digitally, and create their own computer-based programs or machines. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2016) outline that students must be: Digital Citizens, Empowered Learners, Global Collaborators, Creative Communicators, Computational Thinkers, Innovative Designers, and Knowledge Constructors. This means that in order for students to be successful in our increasingly computerized world they must be able to meaningfully participate in a digital global community. They must be taught how to collaborate, investigate, communicate, solve complex problems, invent, and develop computer resources. This means that while many teachers feel comfortable assigning worksheets, lectures, videos, discussions, writing prompts, and research to be done online we must also be teaching our students how to create, troubleshoot, and program their own technologies and resources. The Maker Movement in education supports these goals by framing the need for students to be able to create as well as replicate and synthesize (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014). There are many resources available for students to learn how to code, programming languages, and how to create their own apps. Our jobs as teachers are to expose our students to the resources available to them.
I hope to share what I have learned about educational technology to educate my colleagues and students about how rich a resource technology can be in a classroom. Over the past year I have improved my own practice in technology implementation. Technology is a tool that can be used to educate, support, manage, and inspire students. I hope to integrate technology into the fabric of my future classroom, and encourage my fellow teachers to do the same. I plan on leading staff trainings to start a conversation with my colleagues about technology in the classroom, and encourage everyone to try something new. I will also galvanize students to explore, experiment, design, create, and implement their own technology projects, and to become complete digital citizens. Our students are all future leaders, which means they must be familiar with the technologies of the future, today.
Basye, D. (2016). Personalized vs . Differentiated vs. Individualized learning. [Online] https://www.iste.org/explore/articledetail?articleid=124
Halverson, E., Sheridan, K. (2014). The Maker Movement in Education: Designing, Creating, and Learning Across Contexts. Harvard Educational Review,84(4), 492-494. doi:10.17763/haer.84.4.b1p1352374577600
Huneycutt, T. (2013, October 8). Technology in the Classroom: The Benefits of Blended Learning. National Math+Science Initiative Blog, from http://www.nms.org/Blog/TabId/58/PostId/188/technology-in-the-classroom-the-benefits-of-b
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2016). National Educational Technology Standards for Students
Koehler, M.J., Mishra, P., Bouck, E.C., DeSchryver, M., Kereluik, K., Shin, T.S., Wolf, L.G. (2011). Deep-Play: Developing TPACK for 21st century teachers. International Journal of Learning Technology, 6(2), 146-163.
National Center for Technology Innovation, & Center for Implementing Technology in Education. (n.d.). Integrating the Arts with Technology: Inspiring Creativity. Retrieved from http://www.ldonline.org/article/30245/
Piper, B., Zuilkowski, S., Kwayumba, D., & Strigel, C. (2016). Does technology improve reading outcomes? Comparing the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ICT interventions for early grade reading in Kenya. International Journal of Educational Development,49, 204-214. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059316300293
Schaffhauser, D. (2016, January 19). Report: Education Tech Spending on the Rise.THE Journal, 1-2.
Schneider, B., Blikstein, P., & Pea, R. (2013). The Flipped, Flipped Classroom. Stanford Daily. Retrieved 29 July 2017, from http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/08/05/the-flipped-flipped-classroom/
SRI International. (2013). Evidence Shows How the Right Use of Technology Can Increase Math Learning. Retrieved from https://www.sri.com/blog/evidence-shows-how-right-use-technology-can-increase-math-learning.
Stoeckl, S. (2016, July 13). Five Reasons Why the 2016 ISTE Standards for Students Matter. Retrieved January 31, 2017, from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=685
Taylor, J. A., & Duran, M. (2006). Teaching Social Studies with Technology: New Research on Collaborative Approaches [Abstract]. The History Teacher,40(1), 9-25. doi:10.2307/30036936