Click the link under week 2: Using Technology to help Students Learn.
Here is a good overview of how technology CAN help students learn. Just scroll down to start reading the article. Please post your comments about which parts you agree/disagree with and why? How will this help you be a better teacher when using technology.
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6 comments:
Technology is obviously very important and needs to be taught in all schools. Teaching children with disabilities is so much easier when we can use computers to help them out. Children with motor skill delays or those that dont speak English are still able to learn in class just like all of the other children. There are many things that computers can help teachers with. I agree completely with the part about students of all races needing to be computer literate by the 8th grade. Actually I think they should be computer literate before the 6th grade. The part I didnt agree with was how the idea of showing a couple of educators how to do something and letting them show their coworkers how to do it was given thumbs down. While I was working at a hospital doing xrays they called that way of learning the watch-do-teach method. You watched somebody do a certain kind of xray one time, did the xray one time, and the next time one of those types of xrays came in you taught someone else how to do it. If someone is learning this way and other people are counting on them to teach them they will pay close enough attention to teach others. The link i clicked on made it sound like this method wouldn't work but i completely disagree.
Another great article!! :) There are some stuff I do agree with and things I do not agree with..
The things I agree with
* ICT Literacy's reflection of what students need to develop. This includes: skills enable them to think critically, analyze information, communicate, collaborate, and problem-solve, and the essential role that technology plays in realizing these learning skills in today's knowledge-based society.
*agree that technology can help Language learners, and students with disabilities
* it is important to provide professional development to teachers to help them choose the most appropriate technologies and instructional strategies to meet these goals. Students cannot be expected to benefit from technology if their teachers are neither familiar nor comfortable with it
*and all the ways of administrators and the planning team can help to improve student achievement. :)
Things I disagree with
Like Jill, I disagree with this statement, "every student is technologically literate by the time the student finishes the eighth grade, regardless of the student's race, ethnicity, gender, family income, geographic location, or disability" * I believe that children need to start learning about technology earlier in age...more like..knowing how to use computers in Elementary school.
By looking at all this information, the thing that will help me become a better teacher is getting involved in HOW technology can improve student achievement. Also, looking at the issue that high-stake tests create for children. Will this be more of a problem when I become a teacher?
* I can begin to seek understand of ways student can have success in the workplace! :)
SIMPLY, look at the six arenas that the ICT literacy has to say! :) *very helpful tool*
This article offers a plethora of information, and I had to sit and think about it for a while before I decided what to write. But I think I found some statements that I agree with. First, it is not that computers are being used that help students, but the WAY in which they are being used. We saw a glimpse of this when we had to compare the two scenarios Dr. Pratt gave us. Second, technology can help students develop higher order thinking, if used properly. Technology offers several unique features that can be found nowhere else, and students should be able to experience and learn from these. Developing higher order thinking skills is what school should be about. Third, using technology properly can help student perform better on standardized tests. Since teaching is about doing what is best for the student, technology is a requirement in the classroom, whether or not the teacher likes it.
I was concerned about wanting students to be computer literate by eighth grade as well. This seems like a daunting task, not because the students can't learn it but because this means that I really need to know this material! It is all relatively new to me, and yet I need to know how to teach it to young children. I don't necessarily disagree with this though. I just think that it is a little scary that technology is so much a part of our lives now, that it is necessary to know this to survive in the real world.
This article can help me immensely as a teacher because it addresses different kinds of learners. Teachers need to be able to reach all students and need to differentiate. Sometimes technology can be a handy means of achieving this!
I love how much technology has improved. Ninety-nine percent of schools have internet access compared to 34% in 1994. It goes to show how important technology has become and how dependable we are on it. However, I disagree with something I found in one of the articles it says that every student should be technology literate by the time they complete the 8th grade. I personally think it should be younger than that. I think its good to get kids started on things when they are younger. The sooner they learn it, the better off they will be in both school and preparation for the real world.
I disagree with a concern under the factors to consider. It says that many educators fear that students will be excluded from the perks of technology. They fear this because so many at risk students do not have either computer access or internet access. I understand where they are coming from, but after some of the class discussions we have had, i feel that it is up to the educators to provide access to technology resources for these students. No student should feel excluded or feel left behind simply because they dont have a computer. The teacher should provide plenty of computer time to these students during school so they can keep up with the students who are able to work with computers at home.
Once again: training, training, and then training some more. Although, I already thought I knew the reasons and importance of knowhow of the technology use in the classroom, I think I needed to read all these articles (long, long :o) articles) for it to really sink in. After reading this one thoroughly, I needed to skim it over again,just to look for things I don’t agree with—it wasn’t easy. I haven’t been able yet to practice teaching with technology at school, but I agree with the authors that one of the implementation pitfalls might be the “hasty or ill-conceived purchasing decisions.” This could lead to the use of the technology just for the technology’s sakes or completely cease the use, due to teachers’ lack of operating knowledge. Additionally, I think that in order to become an efficient educator one must practice a lot as well as stay up-to-date with the new instructional ideas. This consequently might lead some educators to start relying too much on the technology idea rather than educating in the first place.
I am still learning about the way children learn, but I know that most technological equipment involves auditory and optical senses, and for auditory and optical learners (if you may) most approaches would work just fine. Now what I question is, with all the time we invest to learn educational technology, we need to remember the rest of the senses, as many cannot be replaced by only looking at the screens, typing etc.
I disagree that digital generation is fundamentally different from previous. My great-grandmother would think that I am from a different planet if she knew me now, as much as we might think of our digital students being so different. We all are driven by the same force: happiness. In order to obtain it we need to be successful, and as teachers we need to help our students to find and develop their potentials leading to their success. Technology could be one of our tools, but I disagree that we should place so much emphasis on it as a creator of the gap between generations. Technology then becomes more of the obstacle, rather than potentially useful tool, a bridge, to our happiness-searching students.
There are many benefits to understanding how we can become more effective and efficient as educators through a wise use of technology in our classrooms:
• Students learn to communicate and express effectively with the help of audio, video, animation, design software—no more just pen and pencil
• Internet offers a lot of data that can be quickly obtained and analyzed
• Students learn how to solve problems—how do they apply what they know and can do to new situations
• Students can lean “with” and “from” computers as well
• For students with special reading/writing needs computers supported with appropriate software can be very useful tool in learning
• English learner can benefit in a great way in their language skills advancement. I can relate to this in many ways, as with the purchase of my home computer my langue skills improved and keep improving. Langue is a key element for many ESL students, as they cannot comprehend any new material without knowledge of the language it is presented to them.
Things to consider: socio-economic gap. This gap has been influencing students’ learning in the past, and with the use of technology this gap might widen now even quicker than before.
I agree with authors that in order to successfully implement technology in education, each school needs a team that develops clear “set of goals, expectations, and criteria for students learning based on national and state standards, the student population, and community concerns.” We need to remember that all students need an equal access to the equipment.
Interesting: longer class periods. I think that is a good idea. Too many times we need more time for certain projects, and they never reach their full potential because we were stopped in the middle.
Once again, my previous point is brought up: teachers need support personnel!
This was a good summing-up quote: “At its best, technology can facilitate deep exploration and integration, high-level thinking, and profound engagement by allowing students to design, explore, experiment, access information, and model complex phenomena.”
We all know that utilizing technology in the classroom can be a very powerful tool for us to use to try to reach the students on an interactive level. Like Jill said, there are several beneficiary factors for teaching students with disabilities with the many programs and forms of technology to ease the challenge of giving these students the same opportunities as any other student. Really, the main thing that drove me up the wall about this article is that it reeks of conservativism. It starts out the entire article talking about how much money we spend on incorporating technology in our schools to improve education and the chief concern is, with all that money going in, they want to see MEASURABLE results to prove that they made a wise investment. As if actual research isn't enough, they want the students to somehow prove how they are being helped through the use of technology. This to me is absolutely insane. I agree that the technology should be used effectively and on that note the teachers should be instructed on how to do so, I don't think it is fair to try to incorporate some kind of standardized measurable results to determine if it is useful or not. This is where the idiocy of the White House needs to stay out of the classroom. Politicians make horrible teachers! I have a question for them, how about instead of being concerned with providing 66 billion dollars towards educating OUR youth, how about the estimated 1.2 trillion dollars it is going to take to invade the country of Iraq under false pretenses and then aimlessly try to clean up our mess as best (which isn't that great) we can. How about we get some research to validate that? This frustrates me to no end. I really can't stand the fact that our nation puts such low priority on the education of our citizens. Education is almost always the first to get cut from funding on the state level. Answer me this, how is it that when I drive through a construction site, I see two assholes (pardon my French) holding a stop sign, three dudes on break, one guy chillin in a truck, a couple of guys surrounding one person is resembles someone actually doing some labor and then two more assholes to hold the slow down sign? Or when I drive by gas stations I almost always see four cops having a pow-wow around the slushie machine? I'm serious; I could set my watch to those "heroes". You've got to be kidding me. I think if we had to cut funding somewhere within the state, there are plenty of other areas that we could cut from to make up for this ridiculous deficit our commander in chief put us in. I also liked the trickle down effect of knowledge. By this, I mean educate a few and those few should infect the rest of the school with the knowledge necessary to use technology. This resembles the republican's belief that if we give enough tax breaks and loop holes to big businesses; the excess profits should trickle down to the grunts. This whole thing is really making me sick. All of the research and findings throughout the report were very encouraging, but it just drives me up a wall that we have to constantly validate ourselves with such stupidity surrounding us.
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