Technology has always had a role in education and will continue to impact educators and learners. From my personal experience as a classroom teacher, it has been the inquisitiveness and creativity of children that has helped to facilitate the integration of technology. When my school first acquired iPads, I was given 5 to use within my grade 8 classroom of students with identified learning disabilities. To explore ways to use the iPad in the classroom, I attended two inservices on effective use. Both sessions focused on the students as consumers where they could “play” with an app to practice remedial skills in literacy and numeracy. I knew that the teenagers I was teaching would not appreciate these “childish” looking apps, despite their academic levels being below grade level. So, instead I set out to explore alternative ways for my students to use the iPad for creation by putting the iPads in the hands of the students. At the time I was unfamiliar with the TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge) Framework developed by Mishra and Koehler and was unknowingly implementing the framework. I taught a math lesson, assigned a content related task and let the students determine how best to demonstrate understanding using the iPad. The engagement first off was impressive. In partners, students completed math calculations, used the internet for research and explored apps that could support their finished product. The results were thrilling! These students who were previously disinterested, unmotivated and struggling academically developed creative, unique displays of knowledge. They were excited about their work and motivated to complete the task. It was this experience that motivated me as an educator to explore additional technologies and to become an advocate of technology integration in the classroom.
Vygotsky described the zone of proximal development as “a child’s ability to learn socially relevant tools,” (Doolittle, 1995, p. 3). The educational experience should foster this learning through effective integration of technology. I learned that it is the obligation of the teacher to explore technology options, but allowing students some autonomy with technology selection can increase motivation and decrease device abandonment. Yet, I wonder if the diversity of available technologies will become so robust that we fall back on what we know, just as some teachers continue to use traditional teaching methods? I fear that the abundance of educational technologies will be a barrier to effective implementation in our future classrooms.
References
Doolittle, P. E. (1995). Understanding cooperative learning through Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development. Paper presented at the Lilly National Conference on excellence in College Teaching, Columbia, South Carolina. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED384575.pdf
Hi Lindsey,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. The future of technology in education interests me and I am definitely a fan of the direction that we are heading. I often find myself thinking back to when I first became a teacher 18 years ago and am fascinated with the changes that have occurred during this time. It is amazing to think that the internet did not exist when I began my career and now 90% of North Americans are users of the internet. It is amazing how dependant we have become on technology not only in education, but in our personal lives as well. Your post regarding the introduction of iPads parallels my own experiences with these devices. I agree with you that iPads have much more potential than simply using the fun apps that are so readily available. At my school we believe that technology has the ability to not only engage students, but improve student achievement as well. The iPads are great tools, but we have recently committed our resources to purchasing Chromebooks for the exact reasons that you describe. Together as a staff we are learning that there are new ways of creating, collaborating, editing and sharing and chromebooks seems to be the tool of choice at this time. Regardless of the tool the technology has been a great asset to education and itis apparent that the life long journey of teacher development and school improvement will forever forward be interconnected to technology. Our ability and willingness to keep pace will be instrumental in determining just how successful our education system in the future will be.
Thanks again,
Samear