The
use of technology in the classroom should not just replace the pencil and paper
worksheets and activities that have existed in the past. The growth of
technology has provided educators with an opportunity to increase the depth of
learning for our students. As a classroom teacher I have seen time and time again
technology used in a way that is not creating critical thinkers, and instead just
a replacement for the same old activities we did on paper. In today’s society we
need to do a better job to create lessons that apply critical thinking skill to
prepare our students for the future. Technology can be an aid in this movement
if it is used in the correct way.
As I read though these articles I begin to
think if educators are truly preparing students for the future. “To be ready
for college, workforce training, and life in a technological society, students
need the ability to gather, comprehend, evaluate, synthesize, report on, and create
a high volume and extensive range of print and nonprint text….”. (Hobbs 2011) I
feel as a classroom teacher many times we are not using technology with this
idea in mind. As teachers our use of technology should be focused on creating
learners who can use the technology they are learning in our school today to
make them thoughtful digital citizens of the future. “Connecting learning to student’s
real lives and aspirations is often what make new pedagogies do engaging for
students.” (Fullan 2014) Lessons for students will also improve student engage if
teachers will create lessons that apply to students futures. Lessons that engage
students are going to create a deeper level of learning in the classroom. As a
teacher I need to do a better job of having students synthesize and evaluate the
information they are reading on the internet.
Teachers
must not use technology to replace the old things they used to do. “When used
correctly, educational technology gives new meaning and utility to
long-established educational paradigms…” (Kuhn 2008) Technology should be used
to create lesson for students that will create a deeper level of learning. Instead
of having students make a word document with notes about the 3 branches of
government, have students create a concept map describing these ideas. I myself
have fallen victim to not using technology to increase student learning. As
Kuhn also mentions in Connecting Depth
and Balance in the Class Technology can also be used to reach many
different type of learners. Each student has different ways and as a classroom
teacher technology can be a tool used to reach these different types of
learners. Most students that we come across in our schools have some sort of technology
accessible to them at all times, and they know how to use this technology.
Teachers need to do a better job of creating lessons that use technology while
also reaching a high level of Blooms Taxonomy. As a teacher to do a better job
of creating lessons that will engage my students in a technology lesson that
will also make them critical thinkers. An
example of this is having students create a campaign commercial for a presidential
election instead of having students making notes about how election media work’s.
Resources:
Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014). A
rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning. London: Pearson.
Hobbs, R. (2011). Empowering learners with
digital and media literacy. Knowledge Quest, 39(5), 12-17.
Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy
of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA:
Valdosta State University.
Kuhn, M. S. (2008). Connecting depth and
balance in class. Learning & Leading with Technology, 36(1), 18-21.
Rogers, E. M. (1963). The adoption process
II. Journal of Cooperative Extension, 1(2), 69-75.
I often feel like I see teachers using technology just to be using it, not really understanding what they are doing with it. This does not service the students in anyway, really. Or they use it because they were told to use it. I tried to do a collaborative lesson last year using the dash and dot robots. The teacher was to introduce some basic terms and ideas in the classroom and when they came to me in the library, they would put that knowledge to use. It did not go over very well as they didn't really have enough background knowledge when they came to me because the teacher really didn't know how to introduce the subject. We both could have used some time to explore what we were doing before introducing it to that particular class.
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