Teaching+with+Technology+Weekly+Reflections

Week 5 – Assessing to Assess The readings and discussion came at an interesting time for me. I just had a meeting on Thursday about assessing students and how that needs to change. The result of the meeting … assessing students is going to change. How? I don’t know, but the plan is to change it. I think as has been discussed in the class, that people are starting to see that assessments need to change, but no one is quiet sure yet what they need to change to.

For so long our society has been tied to give a test then give a grade. But now days that does not fully account for student learning. There is so much more to it than rote memorization. Personally I am a much bigger fan of take home tests and open computer tests. Experts are not expected to memorize everything for their job, so why do we expect students to memorize everything for their tests? If they know how to find information and know how to process information then that means that they have gained enough from my class to make those connective processes needed for learning.

Week 4 – Groups and Assessments. One of the things that I think is great about going through this material is comparing what it says is the best thing to do with what I am doing. There are things that I see myself doing that are on the correct path, but there are also lots of things that I see myself doing that could use some improvement. But that is one of the important parts of teaching I think. Being able to evaluate yourself honestly and see what needs to improve. Looking at the discussion about assessment I am reminded of what I was taught in college – assess what you teach. There is no point in doing a written test in PE if the whole unit was on physical skills. Just like there is no point in doing a written test in BCIS if all of the learning was done through labs. The assessment needs to be about what the students are learning, and should be through a medium that is similar to how they have been taught. They are nervous enough about the test without having to learn a new skill of test taking. That is an area I feel I am doing pretty well in, but I could improve in working more in groups with the students so that they have greater cooperative learning.

Week 3 – Indiviual learning This week’s readings, discussions, and assignments have been bitter sweet. First let me talk about the sweet part. There are many good ideas and discussions about how we can be using different technology in our class and how to individualize the lessons so that everyone can learn. I think this is important to do and a very necessary step for teachers. 21st century learners need 21st century teachers there is no doubt about it. With that being said let me say why it was also bitter. I came to realize there are many tools out there to use, but very few of them are developed to the point that they are efficient enough to be as helpful as they should be. The UDL lesson plans are great, but it only has 10 examples? When looking at their “search for ideas” section, there was not a single lesson plan in their database. The book builder was an outstanding idea, but the interface was so poor I would never use it because of how poorly designed it was. I want to be a 21st century teacher, but I feel like I’m teaching with 20th century tools. I think the reason for this is money. There is so much money available for entertainment, why would a quality designer go to education where there is not nearly as much revenue. It is sad to think of it as a nitch field, but it almost is. And the only people that develop the actual technology tools are limited because of the incentives.

Week 2 Technology Helps I find it interesting how much data and support is available to show about the benefits of using technology in teaching, yet many teachers are unwilling to learn how to incorporate it into their units. Personally, I think there are two reasons for this, one is fear, and the second is knowledge. I do not think that the fear is of not being able to teach, but I think it is a fear of being perceived by the students as not knowing how to use the technology. This leads us to the second point, knowledge. Technology is changing so fast that few people are able to keep up with it. Students that begin this year as freshmen in college will learn technology that will be outdated when they graduate with a teaching degree! This is a serious problem if we as educators are supposed to be “experts”. However, in reality this is a good thing. I remember from the first class we took in this masters that there was a study that showed, as the teachers were willing to learn with the students instead of trying to be the master of all that the learning increased. What better way to show students how to learn than by demonstrating yourself how you learn about new technology?

Week 1 - Learning Styles and Teaching with Technology.

I just want to throw an idea out there... what would happen if we put constructive, connectivism, and cyborg theories in a UFC ring together and had an all out fight? That is almost how I feel when education is talking about how students learn and how we need to teach them. Personally, I think that it is wrong. In a UFC ring there is one winner – the last one standing. In teaching there is not one winner! Students learn using a combination of all three theories and many others. If I was so narrow minded as to think that one theory was “correct” then I would be limiting the learning abilities of the students.

I know that the intent of the course is not to have us pick one, and that is why I like that we look at all three; but it seems that when we get into faculty meetings that is what happens. My hope is that as I work as helping others to use technology in the class that I will not be so focused on one theory that I forget others. We need to use technology to help student learn constructively and connectively and any other way they learn. With that as well though, I think it is important to know that not all students learn with technology. I have found that if I use technology in conjunction with real world non-technology object that more in the class understand the topic and all get a deeper understanding.