I was a student that was taught primarily without technology until I entered college. It is crazy to think that throughout elementary school, computers weren’t very common in houses and now every student has one that they carry around with them from class to class. For me, I felt like it was a smooth transition as my professors taught in class and assigned digital assignments. Eventually, I eased into taking entirely online classes to help utilize the most of my time. I will admit that there were a few things that I had take some extra time on to figure out how to correctly add links, codes, and etc (Luckily, my myspace days helped me with embedding codes - who knew that would be helpful so many years later? Hah!)
We are now living in a digital age and our students have grown up significantly relying on technology. I was one of those teachers that when we started swapping over to primarily digital instruction/assignments within the classroom, I was completely against it. I thought, “I am in this room to teach and these students need to be using pencils and paper, not a computer when a teacher is in the room,” but I was the one missing the point… I have taught a lesson without technology, assessed their growth, and then retaught that same lesson by using their chrome books and incorporated technology, surprisingly, they had more growth with the technology than they did without it. It took this trial of mine to realize that our students are not the same students that we were and engaging them in lessons and educating them is our duty, whether we would learn best from that method or not (it isn't our learning styles being addressed, it's our students').
One positive thing for teachers while following Bloom’s Taxonomy is that they have the freedom to choose in which ways to implement technology. Technology has become an integral part of our learning environment and according to Bloom’s Taxonomy in relation to this for students could be a negative thing as it seems that digital literacy and utilization aren’t being a top priority, therefor, how do we know if we are we receiving a true representation of the student’s knowledge on a subject or if they are lacking in technological skills?
Innovators for teachers would be those that lead the way so to speak. They are the ones willing to sample and try new things, run pilot programs, or essentially anything to somewhat update instruction or implement technology in new ways within the classroom. Laggards would be those that either don’t like change, or realistically struggle with technology themselves. One example that came to mind for me with this was when our school opted to teach coding instead of cursive writing. It was still going to be taught just not during this specific block or with as much incentive, instead it was going to be replaced with coding exercises… There were many teachers within our school that were innovators as well as many laggards. We would have never imagined to be teaching to 3rd graders coding 10 years ago, but times have changed and we must teach accordingly so that these students are able to move forward and keep up with the ever changing world of technology that we live in. Did those laggards eventually swap to the coding lessons? Yes, but it was a few years after the initial swap and it was no longer an option…
References:
Fullan, M. & Langworthy, M. (2014). A rich seam: How new pedagogies find deep learning. London: Pearson. Retrieved from https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/Files/about-pearson/innovation/open-ideas/ARichSeamEnglish.pdf
Hobbs, R. (2011). Empowering learners with digital and media literacy. Knowledge Quest, 39(5), 12-17. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.
Huitt, W. (2011). Bloom et al.'s taxonomy of the cognitive domain. Educational Psychology Interactive.Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/bloom.pdf
Kuhn, M. S. (2008). Connecting depth and balance in class. Learning & Leading with Technology,36(1), 18-21. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database.
Rogers, E. M. (1963). The adoption process II. Journal of Cooperative Extension, 1(2), 69-75. Retrieved from https://archives.joe.org/joe/1963summer/1963-2-a2.pdf
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