In Critical Issues ,Ed Tech ,Personal Learning Networks ,Teachers by Perry / Tags: Accountability, lesson preparation, pedagogy, teacher preparation, technology coordinator, technology integration /
My wife works as a technology coordinator for a public school and has a K-8 endorsement to teach math and science. Working as a technology coordinator for 15+ years, the training and task of integrating lessons with technology has always been a challenge with an aging teacher core. One of the important aspects of technology integration that has been neglected by staff and teachers is proper preparation.
Here are the troublesome issues often seen over the past 15 years and even yet occurs today. Some teachers fail to have backup plans for lessons that are reliant on a service that may be slow or fail to provide timely instruction. Secondly, unprepared teachers are the same people who do not test out their lessons with technology prior to bringing large groups into a computer lab. Lastly, there are teachers whom prepare technology distractions the same day as classes begin, hoping to find something to take accountability away from their teaching duties.
The first issue is one which was witnessed by my wife in a computer lab just a week ago and has been happening since the school’s first year of Internet access. See if this sounds familiar. A teacher finds a website like BrainPOP, which is heavily laced with Adobe’s Flash animation and video technology, and decides to bring a class of 25 students into the computer lab to access this website to do a lesson and take a quiz. The speed of the Internet website slows to a crawl and ruins the teacher’s timetable. Frustration results and the teacher complains to the technology coordinator in the middle of the computer lab period. What do you see wrong here?
- The teacher did not understand the technology’s potential limitations
- The teacher did not test the website with a smaller group to iron out issues
- The teacher did not think about the poor pedagogical practice of each student doing the exact same exercise on separate computers.
- The teacher did not have a backup or fall back plan to teach the lesson.
- The teacher shifted responsibility and accountability for the problem to a person (i.e. technology coordinator) for his/her own failings listed above.
Considering the problems addressed in the example here, how might we as teachers consider how to improve the technology integration process?
- Teachers need to know the strengths and potential weaknesses in technology.
- Knowing the weaknesses, teachers should test teaching with technology in smaller groups.
- Teachers should have a backup plan for teaching a lesson with technology operating at below expectations or failing (i.e. projector bulb blows).
- Teachers should work with technology coordinators to prepare for lessons where they are unsure of the processes success or failure.
- Teachers should consider pedagogical changes when integrating technology. Example: work in groups of 4 members where roles are assigned.
Today, I learned of another example of poor teacher preparation and accountability shifting in preparing curriculum. A teacher is responsible for a 2 week May term class which started last Thursday, May 20. Today, May 24, the teacher calls the technology coordinator and asks for the firewall to be adjusted to allow all math educational games to be unblocked so he can browse and pick some for his May term class to use.
See if you can apply the lessons learned above to this example. Go ahead and comment on the problems you see and potential solutions.
2 ResponsesLeave a comment ?
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Sometimes, the use of technology can be perceived as something ‘quick and easy’. What often escapes teachers is the fact that technology integration requires just as much, if not more planning than ‘regular’ instruction. Part of being an innovative teacher is the willingness to try things out that might not work. However, practical issues such as access, bandwidth, etc. need to be addressed and thought through before trying a new activity.
With regard to the teacher mentioned at the end, a better strategy for instruction would have been to look for resources a couple of weeks ago and ask that necessary items be opened up on the firewall if they are blocked. Besides the access issue, the teacher needs to have a pedagogical reason for doing what he or she wants to do. Just to ‘use the computers’ is not a good enough reason to incorporate technology. Depending on the activity, this could be a great opportunity for some whole-class activity using an interactive white board or a projector. The students and the teacher could work on the activity together, rather than having the students all do the same thing separately. If the kids like the activity as a group, the teacher can make the link available to the students for them to do on their own time. This has the added benefit of extending student learning beyond the classroom.