Technology Integration Learning Plan (TILP)
Concept Map: Teaching, Learning, & Technology
From the course name, I had hoped that Introduction to Technology in Schools would give me a broader perspective from which to consider why and how to use technology in my classes. Ultimately, the course did that and more: this course forced me to think critically about the inclusion of technology in education in general, and it gave me the opportunity to discuss complex Ed Tech ideas with other education professionals, including non-teachers.
The most important way I have grown as an educator from this course is by learning to create lesson plans that include a complete justification for the use of technology into my classes. The process of drafting, critiquing, and finalizing the Technology Integration Learning Plan (TILP) using the ADDIE model was very helpful for getting me to consider whether technology is actually helping my students gain the skills I’m trying to teach them. Sometimes teachers implement tech in the classroom as novelty, experiment, or distraction. I’m certainly guilty of trying new things on my students without a lot of justification. The TILP process helped me think about each step of my lesson, and if I apply the same rigor in the future, I can avoid problems from careless implementation of technology. The TILP project also taught me to use ISTE Standards. These standards are very useful for thinking critically about how and why technology adds value to a lesson plan.
In addition, during the TILP project and during the other assignments, collaboration with my group members was a key factor for success. While I had contributed to documents and other projects stored in cloud servers in the past, I had not collaborated online so closely and with so much information exchange before this class. This showed me that real work and big projects can get done without any face to face meetings. Of course, I knew this from hearing about it, but now that I’ve experienced this kind of substantial online collaboration for myself, I’m a true believer.
I learned many things about educational technology during the course, but I’ll summarize just a few of those things here.
First, the teacher interviews were particularly enlightening for me. I learned a lot just from my interview with my colleague, Jason. The way he uses social media to keep discussions continuing outside of the classroom is very interesting. The fact that many students stay active in the discussions long after their courses end is pretty solid evidence of success. I was also able to see how non-teachers and teachers at other grade levels and settings use educational technology. What was most interesting to me, however, was to read other professionals’ concerns about limited resources and training with the technology available to them.
In addition, the team article project also gave me some insights about how Ed Tech is used and what its limitations are. Our group article about how online teaching can produce better teachers met with some pretty heavy criticism from all of us. Nonetheless, the article did have some good ideas, such as how a teacher’s limited technical ability can be turned into an advantage when the teacher makes use of existing online content or encourages more student-led learning using technology. Of the other groups’ articles, I found an article on gamification most interesting. Gamification hasn’t been well received in my department, but I learned about how others are having success with it – particularly with apps like Classcraft.
Moreover, our textbook gave me a lot of valuable information, such as
Finally, my fellow students introduced me to numerous educational software applications and how they can be used in the classroom. Here are just a few I found useful: Classcraft, Screencast-o-matic, Quizlet, and Lucidchart. I actually used Lucidchart to build my concept map for this course, and it came out pretty well. The contributions of my fellow students had an immediate effect on my tech skills.
I believe that technology can help teachers engage students and increase student participation, ultimately increasing student knowledge. Acquisitions of technology for classrooms also reflect this view, and both teachers and students feel somewhat obligated to put expensive equipment and software installed in their classrooms to good use. Nonetheless, in this class, I have found that educational technology use must be carefully thought out and justified with respect to principles of good practice and sound pedagogical methods. As with any teaching practice, one question stands above all: How will the student benefit?