Looking Back and Looking Ahead

        Over the course of the semester, my idea of educational technology has expanded, become more nuanced, and been reinforced. I started the semester, I must admit, somewhat skeptical of the course. My exposure to educational technology in the past and in my own education has unfortunately been of the “Technology for Technology’s sake”. In those experiences as a student, I lacked the vocabulary and concepts that this course, as well as the rest of the coursework, has given me that I could use to express the dissatisfaction and skepticism with which I viewed that mindset. In other words, I knew that I didn’t like it, but now after taking this course, I know why I didn’t like it. The course has been useful overall, and I have learned about and discovered several tools that I am planning to use. In fact, I am planning on using the tool Swift, which is a polling tool using smartphones, this upcoming week as a way to track progress and gauge understanding. The course has been a great source of finding tools, although oftentimes most of the examples provided were for STEM courses, which do lend themselves more readily to technology integration. My opinion or I guess more specifically my attitude towards educational technology has been the most affected. I still harbor a skepticism and suspicion of those who advocate for total technology integration a la the flipped classroom. Those types of ideas are all well and good in districts or systems with access to technology, but what about districts that don’t? I see the pushing of technology as a potential catalyst for the expansion of the achievement gap and the inequality of opportunity already present in the education system. The idea that “technology=good” is a dangerous one and the course, as well as the quests, reinforced that. The modules/quests on TPACK and SAMR were the most fruitful, and I feel that they were supposed to be, given how many of the subsequent quests referred back to those two concepts. The information about digital citizenship was also useful, as were the LAT taxonomies, which gave me a lot of ideas for integrating technology in the ELA classroom. The rest of the quests were more helpful as reinforcements of those concepts and as opportunities to enact those concepts.

            I plan to use several tools that I have learned in the near future, and some of the activities and tools the course introduced me to (particularly the LAT taxonomies) in my future curriculum. The potential for the inclusion of digital literacy into the ELA classroom is exciting and I look forward to exploring it. Digital citizenship also has a clear home in the ELA classroom, and I can already envision opportunities to discuss it with classes in the next week, so the long-term potential is huge. 

Swift 

Comments

  1. ElizabethDecember 4, 2017 at 3:19 PM

    TPACK and SAMR strongly impacted my learning this semester also. I see your inability to full grasp a "full tech" class, but I have seen it and it is beautiful. Students are all engaged and the teacher has the freedom to cater to students in need of one-one. No student left behind, including AIG and ESL students. Good luck and thank you for sharing.

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  2. UnknownDecember 5, 2017 at 11:49 AM

    Like yourself, I follow in the line of skepticism with "technology = good" is not always true and should not be taken to heart. Although, as Elizabeth Lentz mentioned, there are classrooms that have the capability to be fully tech based, but I don't believe every academic area has the same potential as another. Glad, I am, to hear you found TPACK and SAMR model references as useful concepts to build students' capabilities as a digital citizen. The best of luck implementing the Swift tool in your future classroom!

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