2012 Current Issues in Educational Technology
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Leslie Sova Ferrington EDU 707 12/10/2012
Technology is such a rapidly changing area of study. There are many things that you have to look at or think about as a classroom teacher now that you couldn’t have possibly imagined 15 years ago. If we don’t look at the issues confronting us then we won’t have any ideas of where we stand on these different things. If we are able to inform ourselves and do research, we will be able to make informed and educated decisions about what would work best in our classrooms and for our students. That is what this is really about after all. We need to look and find what would be best for our students. We need to find the ways to be most responsibly engaged in this discussion of technology. We need to stay current so our students have an advantage when they leave the little world of our schools and join the big world waiting for them. If we can be aware, as their teachers, of what they will be walking into, and if we can arm them with the tools they will need they will leave us better than they came to us. We can only accomplish that goal is we know what is out there in regards to technology. We can’t hide our heads in the sand because it’s complicated or confusing. We need to forge ahead and figure these issues out, so we can move forward for the best of our students! Access: How can we ensure access to the disadvantaged or disabled? Before researching it, I had not thought about the fact that white teen men and boys are the ones technologies are normally aimed at. I have however had a lot of experience with the fact that disadvantaged minorities are not able to participate with new technologies the way other people who are more “well off” are able. I work with high risk kids in a low income area. Over 90% of our students are on free and reduced lunch. Because of this many of our students don't have technology available to them at home. One solution for those students is to go to the library or other community places such as the school where they can access the internet. The problem is that these are always filtered internet connections and so those kids still don't have an even playing field when compared to students with access at home. The solution needs to be students having in home access. There are some programs where students can receive computers at home and then certain cable internet providers will give cheap internet to those families, which is a possible solution. A lot of the responsibility does fall on the shoulders of the school district though. If schools are able to provide students with one to one technology such as iPads or laptops often students can take them home. This leaves students with a great advantage. The idea of not blocking most of the internet is huge to me. We have kids who may not have access to the internet at home and we aren't allowing them to use the internet to its full capacity because it's almost all blocked. I understand the need to block certain inappropriate things from the school network but you shouldn't have to jump through a million hoops just to have kids do research on a topic. I think the way our world is changing, we need to have kids’ access things responsibly and we need to teach them how to do that. I know students in my district need to access the computers during non school hours because they don't have computers at home and they need to use technology to do work. I think it's a great thing for them to use even if it's not for school work. They could be shown how to access applications for jobs or other helpful technology!
The disabled have a separate issue. While some disabled may be disadvantaged as well I think the bigger issue is that they need different things than other students. In this case I believe in the fair does not mean equal mantra. If someone has a disability they should be accommodated at least within school so that they can be on the same level of ability as much as possible. It is the districts responsibility to provide those accommodations for the students. As much as possible they should be accommodations that can follow the students into their homes as well. Integration of technology into the curriculum: How can we be sure using technology in the classroom adds to the learning experience and actually improves student learning outcomes? What "best practices" can you find/propose to ensure using technology positively impacts learning? Technology can be a great asset in a classroom, but only if it is used correctly. Taking your entire course and putting it online or integrating technology but not changing anything isn't going to make it an effective hybrid course. In order to really utilize technology in our classrooms we need to change the way we teach. Technology offers a huge array of things we can do with our students that we couldn't do even ten years ago. We need to make learning more about kids exploring different things. They should be more involved in critical thinking and less about lectures delivered with technology integrated. I think one of the best ways to do this is by involving yourself in many conferences around the area focused on current issues with education. I just went to EdCampOU which is a conference run by teachers for teachers and the speakers are all teachers who sign up the day of. By doing things like this you are able to network and find out what other teachers and districts are doing with technology and has been by far one of the most helpful tools I have found (besides these classes of course :o) Teachers shouldn't use technology just for the sake of using technology. If they have a lesson that would be better off without using technology then they should do it that way. Technology shouldn't just be something that they continue to drill until it becomes boring, it should be something that is used to enhance the learning of the students in the class. Training the staff is one of the most important ideas in the use of technology in the classroom. If teachers don't have proper training and support they will often decide the technology isn't worth using because it's hard to figure out and they've taught for many years without it. This ideology just isn't an option anymore. We need technology available for our students and the only way to do that is to get the teachers and staff on board. Based on articles about "e-cheating," how would you combat this type of cheating in your classroom? How has technology changed how you would give assignments or tests? Will you change how you view technology in the classroom now that you see how clever the kids are getting? Cheating has become so much easier for students to do with the new technology available to them. I think this is easy for students to do if the teacher is obviously not walking around the room while students are testing. I do not allow anything else (like the pop bottle from the video) on the desks of my students during tests. The real problem in my opinion though is that students are being given assignments that are easily filled in and therefore easy to cheat on. If we expect
our students to work harder on their school work and if we want them to be more engaged in it then I feel the responsibility of that falls somewhat on the shoulders of the teacher. We should make a move toward more project based lessons where students have to do more exploratory work and less drill and answers. If kids are actively engaged in their work and are using technology to research and engage in their work they will be less likely to cheat. We need our students to be motivated to do their work but we also need to show them the value in what it is that we're asking them to do. I think that if they see that we are asking them to complete assignments that are valuable then they would be less likely to become dishonest. Regardless, I believe that technology is imperative for our students. We need to immerse them in technology in order to prepare them for the world they will be expected to perform in once they leave our care. There are many things we can do to make sure we're using technology to keep kids from cheating too. If you have the ability to use turnitin.com it would be an awesome tool. We do not have access to this in my district but I personally put things through Google myself to check if something doesn't look like it would flow with the students' other work. It is a diligence that I think is required of us if we expect our kids to be honest in their work. When students hear "you're only hurting yourself" it really doesn't mean much to them. They aren't focused on whether they will have this base knowledge for the future for the most part. When a student cheats it is for many reasons but often it is because they are just trying to get through the class so that they can move on with their lives. I think this is a mindset we need to combat. By showing the students how the things they are doing are important to them or their future or even just by connecting the material to their lives in some way, I think you can combat some of this type of cheating. We need to start the training early about how to properly use technology as well as the moral that cheating is wrong. I also think training for teachers to give them ideas and help about how to combat cheating in a world filled with technology is a great point. In reality will our students ever have to take a test in their workplace and not be able to use their technology? I think this will be something that we will have to work through as we move towards the one to one classrooms. Educator Professional Development: What do we have to do to ensure teachers can integrate technology with classroom instruction? Will this ensure teachers can fully utilize the tools available to them? People tend to think the biggest challenge with using technology in the classroom is actually getting the technology into the classroom. It can be incredibly expensive to get a one to one situation in a district. I think the biggest challenge though is the actual implementation of the technology. Most people agree that technology is a great thing for the classroom but that doesn't mean people know what to do once they get it. Over the weekend I was with a friend who told me her husband's school gave him one iPad for him to use in his class. She said so far they were just using it to play music and for their children to play games. This seems terrible I know, but the teachers were given no training at all with the iPads and were not told how to use them in any way.
If we are to be successful with technology implementation we need to make the education of the teachers and staff a priority. You can't teach something you don't understand so before any technology is bought there should be a concrete plans for how the staff will be educated. The buy in of the staff is so important and I think that if you don't provide them the proper support from the very beginning you might as well buy a very expensive radio or paperweight. We also need to make sure we aren’t assuming anything in regards to what teachers or staff "knows" how to use. Just because it seems easy or obvious to one person doesn't mean it's easy or obvious to others. Proper training needs to be built in to the plan. Just because someone teaches computers doesn't mean that they are the "tech" person for your building. The district shouldn't put someone in the position and could solve this issue by both hiring a tech person for the school to help teachers integrate technology and by providing proper training. Just because teachers are trained in how to use the technology given to them that doesn't mean they will use it in their lesson plans. My sister in law is a teacher in a neighboring school district and she has recently moved to a position where she spends part of her day as a tech person to her school. She works with teachers to show them how to use technology to apply to their lessons and classes. I think a position like this would be very valuable to have in school. ICT Competency Standards for Educators: Through the ongoing and effective use of technology in the schooling process, students have the opportunity to acquire important technology capabilities. The key individual in helping students develop those capabilities is the classroom teacher. The teacher is responsible for establishing the classroom environment and preparing the learning opportunities that facilitate students’ use of technology to learn, and communicate. Consequently, it is critical that all classroom teachers are prepared to provide their students with these opportunities. Do you agree with the report's findings? What competencies do you think we need to focus on here in the US? I believe the findings of the report to be true. The classroom teacher is responsible for the education of students in regards to technology. Many students come to school with a knowledge base of how to use most technology but many more do not. These students will all need to know how to use technology when they graduate and go out into the workforce. Our world is becoming more immersed in technology, not less. If we do not give our kids this step up they will be behind the rest of the world when it comes to technology knowledge. I think the thing we most need to focus on within the bounds of this report is the "Knowledge Deepening Approach." This approach is more based around the idea of getting our students to think more for themselves. Instead of feeding our kids drill practices we need to give them more open ended problems to solve themselves as well as giving them the freedom to explore things they find interesting. We as teachers need to know when to use technology and when to put it aside in the best interest of our students’ education. It is also important that our students know how to work with each other in collaborative groups that can be successful. Some parents just don't provide their children with the experiences with technology that would make them successful and so it falls to us as their teachers to fill in those gaps. I think this is comparable to things such as teaching a student to use a typewriter or a word processor. I
understand that this is new or different technology but everything was new at some point. I think teachers who are against having to change their teaching to integrate technology into their lessons are not looking at the best interest of the student. The students will be expected to use these tools to communicate with people and technology continues to grow every day. Our students have access so much more information when compared to students from past generations. They have all this stuff at their fingertips but if we don't provide them with time and resources to utilize this information it won't be of any use to them at all. I think the problem many schools run into is that they don't have a way to keep up with the constantly changing technology because it can become very expensive. This is something you can use grants for or other types of funding like technology bonds. Regardless of how it is done, technology needs to get into the hands of our students. Social Networking: Has the World Wide Web allowed access for kids that can cause more harm than good? Students need to use technology in order to be fully prepared for the world they will enter when they leave school. With that being said, the technology students are exposed to should be decided upon after taking many things into consideration, first of which is the age and maturity level of the class. What is appropriate for a 9th grader wouldn't necessarily work for a 3rd grade student. Something that falls into that category is the use of social networking sites. Younger students don't have the ability to access social networking sites like Facebook and so they shouldn't be asked to for school. Often something like Facebook can be a good tool for older students if they are interested in collaborating. Even so, there are plenty of other safe sites students can use. Google apps for education are good sites to use for things like blogging. Students can use blogs to connect with each other from wherever they are without having to buy a subscription to anything. This is also a great way to connect with students from other areas around the world. I also like the example of using Skype that some of the schools in the article gave. The internet can be an incredibly useful tool for our students, but like anything else, in order for it to be safe and useful we as the leaders need to plan it out carefully and thoughtfully and we need to be fully trained and present before we begin to integrate it into our classrooms. We want to protect our students from the ills of the wide world which includes all the stuff on the internet that is considered "unsavory" but we can't protect them forever. In order to prepare them to live in the real world we have to give them safe options to experience "real world" situations where they can learn and explore while still being monitored and safe. I think your school's program about think first stay safe is a very good thing. We need to integrate the ideas of good online citizenship into the lessons our students receive if we expect them to be able to function properly in that world. We teach our students how to talk to others in an appropriate manner; we should teach them how to talk online in an appropriate manner too. We need to look at student mistakes as teachable moments instead of just blocking the sites they were using. We should do everything we can to show students how they can work properly within the online world. Another idea that is important is that if students are engrossed in the
lessons they are doing they will be less likely to stray into inappropriate territory on the internet. Everything we want students to do should be explored first by the teacher. We need to know all the ins and outs of the programs and sites we ask our students to use them. By knowing how to properly set the privacy for each thing we are able to make our students as safe as possible. Classroom Ethics- How do we teach ethics to today's students? How can we protect our classrooms against illegal use of technology in the classroom? Ethics are something we definitely need to teach our students. So many of our students don't see the lines or think the lines are blurred for sharing intellectual information because it's so easy to get to without giving credit. This is something that I think English teachers have always struggled with because students often find it so tempting to take others' work as their own and technology has only made issues like this more prevalent. Monitoring software such as turnitin.com are good solutions for stopping plagiarism but that will only be the beginning. We need to actually teach students what they can use and how to properly cite all things. They need to understand what creative commons are and how we can use the resources available to us. We need to lead by example. If we ignore copy write laws in the way we teach our students how can we turn around and expect them to follow them? I think a lot of teachers aren't even knowledgeable of what those laws are. The sense of right and wrong that our students have has changed drastically in the last generation. Because our students have the world at their fingertips they often think they can use whatever they can find. As their teachers it is up to us to monitor their use of the technology and make sure they are not doing things they shouldn't be doing. Not only do we need to teach them but we need to reinforce them with consistent policies. We might think there is a definite line between accidentally using a picture in a PowerPoint and copying someone's paper outright but our students may not see those lines and in reality, both are stealing.