Last week we discussed how there is no “silver bullet” when it comes to inequality with technology. Technology is dependent on the person that is using it. One of my favorite quotes from the readings is “In education, technologies amplify whatever pedagogical capacity is already there.” (Toyama, 2015) Educators must seek to include technology in the classroom for technology to reach its full potential. With this in mind the articles this week addressed what technology looks like in the classroom and what can make technology successful or unsuccessful.
Yaël and I have worked hard to explore the use of technology in the classroom. Many teachers are looking to integrate technology in the classroom in an effort to level the playing field but the question of how to implement it is constantly on my mind as an educator. In my last post I noted that the key to a successful technology program is “training teachers, creating software and digital content, delivering maintenance and support, and sustaining a long-term commitment.” (Kraemer, Dedrick, & Sharma, 2009) The articles that we worked on this week focused on the implementation of technology. Another article, Note Taking with Technology, focused on the benefits of technology and how it allows students to support their needs, save their notes, search for important information, and share with peers. (Holland, 2014) The article 3 Tips for Managing Phone Use in Class, they addressed phone use in the classroom. Teachers often have a no cellphone policy. Student consistently try to get around this rule regardless of age. In my elementary school classroom, I take away about cellphones a month from students who are trying to text or play games during school. The main issue that I had for this article was that by having control or allowing use of cell phones the teacher takes responsibility for their use. This article seemed to make more sense for a high school classroom. The article discussed how teachers should establish ground rules in the first week of instruction and make sure that they have open dialogue about the use of cell phones. (Kolb, 2017) This is something that I completely agree with regardless of the subject. When students are asked to be up front with their questions there is less confusion and the students feel more comfortable with asking when the answer is not apparent to them. In my elementary classroom cell phones are not permitted, however I established rules with the students in class the first few weeks of school and discussed why these rules were there. I have far less issues with this proactive approach rather than relying on the students to remember the school’s policies. In a high school setting I can see how technology will assist learning. Using tips for managing phone use and applying these tips to technology is important for educators. Allowing students to use technology in ways that are useful to the students is key for creating networks for learners and creating skills that the students can use in their careers. The real question once the use of technology has been established is what makes it successful. According to the guide on what makes it successful the technology must be accessible and ready to use, support the curriculum, and be routine and transparent. (Marian, 2007) This I agree with completely. If technology isn’t easy to integrate then it can’t be successful in the classroom. Technology should be an extension of learning and not simply used for the sake of technology. In the college environment we use many of these skills. It is second nature to have a cell phone out to use for class either to fact check information or to quickly add up information on a calculator. It makes sense that we should begin to integrate technology in this way earlier than the college environment however many educators are hesitant. What makes technology “good” in the classroom and what makes it “bad” is typically the same thing. It allows for quick communication and access to information. When this is used appropriately in the classroom this creates a wonderful environment for learning. If students are taught to use this technology appropriately in early school years then this use of technology will become more seamless and intuitive which will create a successful environment for technology. When a pro-technology environment is created students will be able to better use technology in the classroom. Though this will not allow for students to magically obtain a level playing field it does allow for students to become familiar with appropriate uses for technology in the classroom which will prepare them for college and future careers. Works Cited Holland, B. (2014, October 4). Note taking with technology. Edutopia. Kolb, L. (2017, September 11). 3 tips for managing phone use in class. Edutopia. Kraemer, K., Dedrick, J., & Sharma, P. (2009, June). One laptop per child: vision vs. reality. Communications of the ACM, 73. Marian, S. (2007, November 5). What is successful technology integration? Edutopia. Toyama, K. (2015, June 4). Technology won't fix america's neediest schools. It makes bad education worse. The washington post.
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Looking at readings from the past few weeks creates a pattern which I have found very intriguing. Technology is something that has taken over our world and education has been slow to adapt. This week we specifically read about how technology will not fix education and this is very true. It is my personal belief that it is not pieces of the system that is broken but the system itself. Most educators know that the educational system was originally created to construct laborers for our industrialized system. We did not build this system to work with developmental levels but instead assigned children to levels based on age due to size and the ability to complete tasks in a factory. It is with this mindset that I approached the readings this week. Across the United States, access to technology has been a hot-button issue. Computers in the hope, internet access, and technological knowledge are difficult to find in many low socioeconomic households which puts these students at a disadvantage when comparing these students to higher socioeconomic households. This leads to many asking if technology could be a silver bullet to end educational inequality. Looking back on the book Do Artifacts have Politics? Winner stated, "the ways human ends are powerfully transformed as they are adapted to technical means." (Winner, 1988), by providing technology we do not automatically make everything equal. In fact, it often separates us even more. Christo Sims discussed how technology comes into education with the idea of fixing the system but after being introduced into the system they often revert to our traditional school structure. The idea that technology is disruptive to the status quo was challenged and found to be much more conservative and less disruptive than expected. (Sims, 2017) Sims also discussed how education tends to favor the more educated parents since they find ways to work within the system and make sure their students have the advantage. Though “freedom from bias should be held out as an ideal.” (Friedman & Nissenbaum, 1996) it is almost impossible to create a bias-free situation. In a video from the Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science they discussed a case study, IPads for Social Justice, which interested me because the case study was in Los Angeles the demographics were very similar to my own elementary school. The study noted that though there was access to technology, many classes used paper and pencil instead of utilizing the technology. I personally saw this in my own schools. At the elementary school I taught at 2 years ago, they had the same armored charging stations that no teacher (except me) wanted in their classrooms. This creates an issue because “In education, technologies amplify whatever pedagogical capacity is already there.” (Toyama, 2015) It is ludicrous to expect these teachers to magically change their teaching simply because an IPad was introduced to their classroom. When introducing technology there are many requirements including “training teachers, creating software and digital content, delivering maintenance and support, and sustaining a long-term commitment.” (Kraemer, Dedrick, & Sharma, 2009) Teachers need support to incorporate technology and the current level of support is not nearly enough. Technology is not a magical fix to all problems and it would be silly to treat it that way. The children with parents who are involved and educated will always have the support at home to have a deeper understanding of the technology introduced. That is not the purpose or point of introducing technology. When I think of technology in a classroom environment, I immediately think of students finding skills that relate to their own lives. These students need a network both in and out of school. They need to learn about “correcting others, being open to being corrected oneself, and working together”. (Davidson & Goldberg, 2009) With this network established the technology will become an extension of who they are, not something that is only applicable to the educational setting. In this same way the technology should not be used despite curriculum but instead to enhance it. The real issue lies in the way that the school systems approach technology. They do not have the long-term commitment to any one piece of technology to see it through. Without this commitment, how can we expect technology to continue? There can be no solution without constant evaluation and commitment. There is no silver bullet that is effective without a skilled marksman to wield it. Works Cited Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) Boston, Massachusetts. Wed. August 30 Sat. September 2, 2017. http://tinyurl.com/kt85k94 Davidson, C. N., & Goldberg, D. T. (2009). The future of learning institutions in a digital age. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Friedman, B., & Nissenbaum, H. (1996, July 3). Bias in Computer Systems. ACM Transactions on Information Systems, pp. 330-347. Kraemer, K., Dedrick, J., & Sharma, P. (2009, June). One laptop per child: vision vs. reality. Communications of the ACM, 73. Sims, C. (2017). Disruptive fixation school reform and the pitfalls of techno-idealism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton university press. Toyama, K. (2015, June 4). Technology won't fix america's neediest schools. It makes bad education worse. The washington post. Winner, L. (1988). The Whale and the Reactor. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Yaël and I discussed the many aspects of the connected learning framework. Thankfully there are many resources related to this that we could reference and pull from. One thought that kept reoccurring as I read and annotated was that traditional public education no longer addresses the needs of its students (if it ever did.) More specifically, as we grow as a technology laden community it becomes more difficult to teach the skills needed to succeed in the classroom without overhauling the entire system. Connected learning allows for students to explore themselves and learn in environments that traditionally would not be supported by the school system.
One of the articles we discussed, Designing Connected Learning: Emerging learning systems in a craft teacher education course, directly addressed how teachers themselves can change instruction to meet the needs of their students. I love the concept of connected learning, however with the current state of education I have concerns about how to implement it in the classroom without having administration tell me it is not structured enough. The article stated that the “process is not scripted in detail in advance but has to be actively designed by the students themselves.” (Vartiaien, Pöllänen, Liljeström, Vanninen, & Enkenberg, 2016) This is almost impossible in the current public education setting. The framework speaks to me as an educator and I would love incorporating it into the classroom. The goal is not about grades or scores in school but it is about real-world contributions and achievement. From a teacher’s perspective this involves “weaving” or connecting ideas and knowledge across different pools of knowledge. (Cazden, 2006) Education needs to pull from this more often. It is not enough to have ‘book smarts’. Students must develop the tools to think critically and apply their knowledge into many different aspects of their lives outside of school. When I was in college this was called “funds of knowledge.” The idea was for students to use their own knowledge to make learning more concrete and work to embed the learning into a context the students understand. This also allows the students to learn how to challenge the status quo. Yaël and I have spoken at length about how society approaches learning and agree that steps should be taken to progress far beyond where we currently sit. There is an example in Cazden’s keynote address that discusses a Mother’s Day lesson. This lesson asks for students to bring in articles and catalogues for representations of mothers. Then the children participated in discussion to “identify gaps and suggest possible changes” (Cazden, 2006). This teaches students so many things but one of the most important aspects to me is that it teaches students to think critically about how the media represents people. By showing students that magazines and media are not always accurate it opens dialogue on what else may be misrepresented and how it can be changed. By accepting non-traditional media into the classroom teachers allow for their teaching to become more meaningful. This is very difficult because of the system currently in place. For connected learning teachers should not always give a “end result” or procedure and instead should have students come up with their own. (Vartiaien, Pöllänen, Liljeström, Vanninen, & Enkenberg, 2016) There is currently a paradox in public education. Teachers are asked to have students control their learning and manipulate their classroom environment but they are also asked to have clear end results and grading rubrics at every step of the lesson. It is impossible to do this and allow for students to make mistakes and reassess their learning within the road maps and time constraints permitted by the district. Having students bring in articles to allow for discourse about a current event sounds wonderful, but I am required to have a standard posted, a goal task, and how the student will know they have reached the desired “goal”. If students are practicing inquiry they need to follow their own path, not one set by the teacher. This is not to say that I believe rubrics should never be allowed in school or that planned out lessons are not useful. I understand that they have their place, but I wish that my students were given more freedom to explore their world and use their own motivation and interests to guide them. I hope to see more connected learning in mainstream schooling, but with the current school systems expectations I do not see it as part of a curriculum at any point soon. I believe that students learn better with a connected learning framework and I wish that I could encourage my students to take advantage of it more inside and outside of school. To use the students’ funds of knowledge and allow for exploration would be an ideal and very beneficial experience for both students and their teachers. Works CitedJones, J. (2007). Connected learning in co-operative education. International journal of teaching and learning in higher education, 263-273. Vartiaien, H., Pöllänen, S., Liljeström, A., Vanninen, P., & Enkenberg, J. (2016). Designing connected learning: emerging learning systms in a craft teacher education course. Design and Technology Education, 32-40. Williams, A. (2013, April 03). Connected learning: tying student passions to school subjects. MindShift. Retrieved October 15, 2017 from https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/04/03/connected-learning-tying-to-student-passions-to-school-subjects/ Cazden, C.B. (2006a) Connected Learning: ‘weaving’ in classroom lessons. Keynote address at Pedagogy in Practice conference, University of Newcastle, 18 January. This week included readings centering around connected learning and making learning student centered. I found it very interesting because I have been researching what will help close the gap between high SES and low SES learners. Embracing authentic learning opportunities and connecting with a student’s interests are key to this type of learning. I read this week thinking of all the ways that education could be better but is not. When I picture a classroom with student centered learning the first major shift I see is that the teacher is not the facilitator of learning. The teacher is not in front of the class teaching standards but instead is allowing students to explore as necessary. This classroom would also need space for the students to work on themselves as people. Reflection logs, journals, meditation areas, etc. How do we allow students to grow as individuals?
Students in traditional environments often feel disconnected from their learning environments because the learning is not meaningful to them. Connected learning aims to “elevate the culture and identity of non-dominate children and youth.” (Ito, et al., 2013) It allows the students to make learning meaningful regardless of cultural touchstones. As technology progresses it embeds itself into many aspects of our lives and, just as many adults do not know how to operate when their phone battery dies, students are increasingly dependent of technology. Why is it that we have not seen an equal shift in our classrooms? In one of our texts there was a line that stuck out to me, “But our schools – how we teach, where we teach, who we teach, who teaches, who administers, and who services – have changed mostly around the edges.” This struck a chord because I deal with this every day! When attempting to use technology there is a lot of red tape and once I push through that I encounter push-back from administrators about how I should be teaching. The computers seem to either be used as a babysitter or not at all. When students are asked to collaborate online with larger groups of people they are required to learn skills about disagreeing online. In The Future of Learning Institutions in the Digital age I noted that the individualized learning focused on working together with people from all walks of life. One of the key points was that the students would need to learn how to respectfully agree and disagree with others. They discussed how networked learning requires students to “correcting others, being open to being corrected oneself, and working together”. (Davidson & Goldberg, 2009) Learning how to work with others and striking a balance on how and when to disagree is something that is currently lacking in our public educational system. For evidence of this, simply look at the comments of any popular YouTube video. With 4 years of my education being in a Montessori school, I feel like I have been exposed to this learning already. I was given a taste, told to work towards it in my college programs, and then was squashed by the public-school machine. Tailoring learning to the students is parroted by every administrator and district (public) but then we are asked to teach in the same way, are evaluated in the same way, and are asked to respond in the same way. How does this differentiate? It does not. It never will. The school system is more interested in the idea of differentiation than the differentiation itself. The biggest proof of this is when teachers attend a professional learning training. The presentation is typically a PowerPoint with someone reading off a pad of paper. They go through the motions and teach in a lecture style. Sometimes there is a funny “hook” or attention-grabbing device in the beginning of the lesson, but overall the lecture is the same format without any of the differentiation that the district claims is so important. One of the big pushes in education has been for a student centered and inquiry based classroom. This is touched on many times in Structuring Equality but is echoed in the other readings as well. How do we teach these students not only become successful in educational setting but also in their everyday lives. As a teacher I strive to allow students to grow as individuals and to ask why. Challenging the system is tricky and not without difficulties but a major shift needs to happen in order to keep up with these students. We need to make sure that the students are having their needs met both inside and outside the classroom and that their learning is impactful to them. When students are treated respectfully and their ideas are taken seriously they will begin to learn and they will be invested in learning. When we create curriculum that rubber stamps each student and do not allow them to grow the students become dissatisfied with the system that didn’t allow them to grow. Schools are ‘changing around the edges’ but are not embracing digital learning and technology while students are clinging to it like a life preserver. We need to embrace digital learning and ‘connectedness’ to best reach the needs of our children. If not now, then when? Works CitedDavidson, C. N., & Goldberg, D. T. (2009). The future of learning institutions in a digital age. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Ito, M., Gutierrez, K., Livingstone, S., Penuel, B., Rhodes, J., Salen, K., . . . Watkins, C. (2013). Connected learning. Irvine, CA.: Digital media and learning research hub. The Graduate Center Learning Collective. (2017). Structuring equality: A handbook for student-centered learning and teaching practices. HASTAC. |
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November 2017
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