It has been an interesting experience taking a technology class with people who are already teachers and attempting to use technologies in their classrooms. This is my first quarter in the MAT program; I have nearly two years before I will be in a classroom of my own. So while some of my colleagues are actually applying our learning to their classrooms, I am formulating my pedagogical beliefs about technology and its place in the classroom. For example, Harris, Mishra, and Koehler (2009, p. 396-97) emphasize not only the use of technology, but “the connections among technologies, curriculum content, and specific pedagogical approaches” which “produce effective discipline-based teaching with educational technologies.” While I am not completely sure if I will ever use tools as specific as Scratch or SuperGoo (Peppler & Kafai, 2007), I think it is more important that I develop a philosophy about incorporating technologies into education without becoming too focused on the technology and lose sight of the rest of the content the state requires that students learn. The technology will change and become outdated; from this course I now understand that it is about finding technologies that are worth using and that will work well with the rest of the course content. So while I cannot say that I am leaving this class with a list of tools that I will definitely use, I do know that I will use technologies that are supplemental to the material we are working on in class.
In years past, the use of technology in the classroom by making the classroom online through online courses has carried a negative stigma with it. Bacer (2009, p.1) describes that students previously enrolled in online courses faced learning obstacles because “the lack of audio and visual clues can create a sense of silence” because students are “not seeing or hearing the other learners.” I shared this perspective and did not believe that it is possible to learn as much in an online course as in an actual classroom. However, through the use of tools such as VoiceThread, WordPress, and EtherPad, there is a connection between the other students and myself; they are now more than just a name on the computer screen to me, proving to me that an online class can be worthwhile. Teachers now have the ability to overcome the obstacle of engaging the students in an online classroom through tools that allow students to interact with one another and work together, even if it is not face to face. Even in regular classrooms, technologies have been difficult to incorporate because of the cost to purchase the latest and greatest programs; but most of the technologies we looked at this quarter were free, allowing teachers to have plenty of options without having to pay. The advancement of technologies that allow people to be more interactive through the use of audio, video, real-time technologies, and others, make using technologies for class work an enjoyable activity that still allows learning to take place.
Using technology in the classroom is not always an easy feat. Sandholtz and Reilly (2004, p. 487) explain that it is difficult for teachers to stay up to date on what technology is available to teachers and that it is better not to expect them to have high technical skills, but for them “to focus on developing curriculum, evaluating learning materials, and thinking about how to provide better learning opportunities for their students”; when this is done, “teachers are likely to use technology more effectively and creatively in their teaching.” Students are expected to be taught how to use technology so they are ready for the digital world that we live in. However, this is not a specific content area in itself; teachers have to tie it in with the rest of students’ educations. As someone who is not yet a teacher, I cannot say that I understand the difficulties that these and some of my peers have described, but I feel more informed about some of the struggles I may face and some of the expectations that will be on my shoulders when I walk into my classroom. Not only have I been informed about potential challenges, rather, I feel as though I have also been equipped with the tools and with the philosophy to allow me to succeed in becoming a teacher who utilizes technology in the classroom.
References:
Bacer, Kathleen (2009, May). Utilizing auditory and visual tools to engage the 21st Century eLearner.
Harris, J., Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. (2009). Teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge and learning activity types: Curriculum-based technology integration reframed, Journal of research on technology in education, 41(4), p. 393-416.
Peppler, K. A. & Kafai, Y. S., (2007). From SuperGoo to Scratch: Exploring Creative Digital Media Production in Informal Learning, Learning, Media and Technology Special Issue: Media Education Goes Digital [Electronic Version].
Ribble, M. S., Bailey, G.D., & Ross, T. W. (2004). Digital citizenship: addressing appropriate technology behavior, Learning & leading with technology 32(1), p. 6-12.
Sandholtz, J. H. & Reilly, B. (2004). Teachers, not technicians: rethinking technical expectations for teachers, Teachers college record, 106(3), p. 487-512.
