Joseph Goldman EDCI 5825 6/6/2009 Philosophy of Education Technology
A comprehensive course at thesecondary level prepares students by offering them the “necessary skills not just for employment and further education, but also for becoming a productive member of society,” (CT state board of education, Common Core of Learning, 1998). These are not my own words,these are some of the first thoughts expressed by the Connecticut State Board of Education in the Common Core of Learning. It naturally follows from this perspective of education that the incorporation of technology in the classroom is necessary. We live in the 21st century;an age that has watched the rapid growth of technology to the point that electronic media is present in almost every workplace and every home. Information is now gathered and presented electronically, campaigns have moved to cyberspace, bills can be paid, letters sent, and videos may be watched, all at the push of a few buttons on a computer or phone. Therefore, if a student is to be prepared to be a participating and informed member of their society, they must be familiar with various forms of technology. There has been little time to effectively study the effects of technology on student cognition, but there is evidence that technology, if integrated appropriately into lesson plans, can foster student education (PD technology integration 2007, Lawless, pp 601) by offering a cognitive framework for problem solving, can offer students alternative ways to build a knowledge base, and can offer students an opportunity to experience information sharing and understanding of information that can be transferred outside of the classroom. For example, the web site: http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/offers students an opportunity to study primary source documents from the civil war era. A lesson plan designed for the 10th or 11th grade level could incorporate that site by asking students to assume the roles of fictitious characters that lived during the civil war era based on the student’s reading of news articles and letters they have found on the site. The students could then exchange letters via email with other classmates that have also assumed civil war era identities. In this situation the use of online documents highlights the potential that technology holds with regard to information gathering. The exchange of email in this assignment would certainly not be consistent with the exchange of information during the civil war era, but it would be consistent with the constructivist approach to learning via information technology. Despite the advantages that technology offers it is important to consider the potential drawbacks to the incorporation of technology in the classroom. Technology should not simply supplement a lesson plan or an assignment. For example, assigning students a project that requires a power point presentation is not effective incorporation of technology if the power point itself offers no advantage over a word processing or hand written assignment. This assignment may offer some students exposure to new technology but it does not offer students new ways to gather knowledge, share ideas, or new approaches to problem solving. A teacher must also be wearyof the time it can take to train students to use a new form of technology. For example, if a teacher intends to integrate a podcast into a student assignment, it is likely that the students will spend the better part of a class period learning how to pod cast. A teacher must ask if the time spent training the students is justified when considering that the same time would have otherwise been spent in the classroom on subject matter. The importance of incorporating technology in assignments must also be weighted against the availability of the required technology for each student. A teacher must keep in mind that his students will have a wide variety of backgrounds, socioeconomic and otherwise. Some students will not have Internet access or a computer at home, and others will not be familiar with certain sorts of technology. A teacher should not assign work that offers enfranchised students the opportunity to succeed and at the same time could negatively impact an underprivileged
student. It is the responsibility of the teacher to balance that lack of access with the need to expose students to a variety of technology. This does not mean that technology should not be used at all. On the contrary, it should be used frequently. Showing thought provoking video clips, asking students to follow and participate in a blog or follow a particular news story online, encouraging communication via email, and giving group assignments to students that could be presented by power point are all examples of the use of technology, and all of them can be accomplished by a student with access to the school computer lab or a computer in the classroom. Technology in the classroom, while if used improperly could disenfranchise underprivileged students, can also be an effective way of reaching some students who are visual learnersand can inspire students to think creatively about how technology can serve a student’s needs in the classroom and outside of it. While teachers should not rely on power point, a teacher who can convey a messages through power point presentations by using sounds, artwork, or pictures of historical figures, can offer a more diverse set of learning experiences that may engage students that do not respond well to lecture. Word processing and communication by email can engage social learners; video editing can tap into the creativity of the visual learners in the class, and asking students to analyze the significance of a song that they play on an Ipod, computer, CD or phone can stimulate aural learners. The integration of these types of technologies also offers a variety of assessment opportunities and can create an environment of social justice in the classroom. Finally, a good teacher must selfasses their use of technology in the classroom. “It seems likely that children from most, if not all, social and economic strata will ultimately come to have reasonable levels of access to communications and information technologies in their schools. Less clear, however, is the likelihood that they will have access to teachers who know how to use that technology well to support 21stcentury learning and teaching,” (PD technology integration 2007, Lawless, p. 578). Because the last several years have seen a massive expansion of available technology, there also has been little time to train teachers to incorporate new technologies into lesson plans. Additionally, a compilation of the study of technology in the classroom shows that “we simply do not have the research base necessary to support many of the recommendations proffered by the literature concerning issues of best practice. Even when research indicates that professional development quality is increasing, these experiences remain disconnected from the guidelines related to effective professional development,” (PD technology integration 2007, Lawless, p 579) Therefore, it is particularly critical that teachers pay careful attention to the student response to technology. They may do this by assessing the response of students to new technology and considering if the use of that technology stimulates student participation and understanding of the course material without disengaging students who may be less familiar with the technology. In summary, student familiarity with technology is important to the student’s ability to make it in the 21stcentury. It is possible for technology to be engaging, informative, transferrable, and enfranchising, but it is the responsibility of the teacher to pay careful attention to their own incorporation of technology in the classroom.