International Society for Technology in Education
Making 21st Century High Schools: Go Mobile Go Global with Cathleen Norris, PhD and Elliot Soloway, PhD
I viewed this session of the ISTE conference thinking there would be information specific to high schools and technology. This session was more of a K-12 sales pitch for smart phones; which for me was a disappointment. That is not to say that I did’t take away a few valuable bits of information during the presentation.
Norris and Soloway spent the first part of the presentation on why technology in schools as not been a huge success. The reason for pointing this out is so that schools can avoid the same mistakes as they plan curriculum for 21st Century learning. Their points are valid and the advice should be heeded.
When a district is getting ready to purchase technology there should be goals in place and the technology should be essential to the curriculum. Examples were shared about how schools bought laptops without educational software or did not buy the laptop cart to make the computers mobile. There was no plan in place for how to use the equipment. Another reason that schools had not utilized the technology that had been purchased was that professional development, teaching teachers how to utilize the equipment, was not provided. What good is something if no one knows how to use it? Also, the expensive machines were purchased without any software applications for teachers. The machines jut had a word processor and an Internet browser. The third mistake that was mentioned was that the technology was purchased without a connection to the curriculum.
These are all valid points. Schools should have a curriculum in place and then look for the best tools to teach that curriculum. If laptops, desktops, or hand held mobile devices are selected for delivering this education than the teachers need to know how to use the equipment. Access to the technology should also be readily available.
I’m not sure that cellular devices and blue tooth will be the future of technology for schools. I see several problems with this, the main one being that the screens are too small for sustained work. The one point the presenters made that I think is the most import thing in the entire presentation is that schools should not necessarily focus on the device, but rather the focus should be on the type of connectivity and the cost of the connectivity should be weighed into the equation during the planning stages. It was suggested that a monthly cost per student to use the technology with all things taken into account is the way to have a sustainable device for students.
Technology for the sake of technology is useless. There must be a need and a reason for having this type of equipment. I agree with the presenters when they say that the technology needs to be essential to the curriculum.
Does this mean we overhaul the curriculum to teach with technology?
The curriculum should be overhauled if we think it is not giving students the knowledge-base and skill set that they need to function fully within society.
ReplyDeleteI think we need to view technology as a tool for learning and communicating rather than having the shiny newest toy drive the curriculum. Everything starts with the curriculum and then teachers can use every trick in the book to try to engage students with what students should know & be able to do.
If that means using technology to connect students with a guest speaker or an author using video conferencing or having students use a wiki to create an interactive text book for their content area, great. If it is some other method to achieve our goals and objective, that's fine too.
You pointed out some pitfalls that would be easy to fall into. As our school gets more and more SMARTboards, we keep reminding ourselves that they are just a tool. A blackboard doesn't make you a better or worse teacher, neither does a SMARTboard. A good teacher will certainly utilize the technology when appropriate, but the tool itself is not the teacher. It sounds like the session you watched had a similar theme, only pointed more toward curriculum. Your summary goes well with J.Lope's blog post at http://jvlopez.blogspot.com.
ReplyDeleteIt really is odd that as I listened to what the presenters were saying I kept waiting for them to start selling computer phones. They kept stressing how this is how the kids function outside of school so this is what we should use to teach them.
ReplyDeleteI guess I show my age when I say that if that argument were true we'd all be delivering lessons on AM radio; it was all the rage. We had these transistor radios and we would hold them up to our ears!
While technology marches forward educational goals really remain the same. At the end of each decade we want our students to read, write, and be able to do math. The other subjects all fall within those basic skills. What we use is beside the point and begs the question as to whether we should be spending so much time and money on gadgets.
Hi Teresa,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. As a former school technology coordinator, I can appreciate the current requirements to have a technology included in the lesson plans. The problem is that many times either the equipment is out dated or the teacher's skills have not been upgraded to the new technology. That's were the LMS can step in and be the expert by providing professional development and or workshops. Thank you for sharing.