Candidates demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to use processes and resources for learning by applying principles and theories of media utilization, diffusion, implementation, and policy-making.
Our school is one of 4 in our District that has begun the integration of technology in to the classroom. Our school has every student in grade 9 and 10 to bring a personally own device (POD) for use in the classroom. Students can use cell phones, tablets, or laptops to interact with the curriculum and help them learn. It is expected that each student provide their own computing device, while we do have 5 laptops for students that financially cannot afford a computing device, so far every student has provided their own.
Our district uses a web base course organizer called Desire to Learn (D2L) which is similar to Moodle. I teach grade 9-12 Social Studies and my entire course for grade 9 and 10 is up on and available to my students. My course is designed where students must have a personal own device to be able to function and do the activities and assignments. Our school is completely wireless and has IT support available once a week.
There have been many challenges with the implementation of this program; accessing the lessons and activities using a cell phone and tablet has a challenge for students. Some lesson with embed videos don’t work on some mobile devices. Some students had difficulty accessing D2L. I had to create a mirror site on Google drive for some students so they could fully participate. Some students have POD’s that don’t have MS word and we have had to find alternative open sources programs for them. The roll out of this program would have been much more difficult had I not being enrolled in the MET program at Boise State which gave me access and introduction to variety of tools and techniques.
The program is been up and running for two months and most of the kinks have been worked out and students have adapting to the program and expectations. Overall students have enjoyed the opportunity to learn using technology, the flexibility of working at their own pace and having access to the most current information. Our Social Studies curriculum is based upon problem base learning and so access technology is crucial to the success of this type of curriculum. Next year we will add 2 more grades to the roll out as out grade 8 and 11 students will all have POD’s, eventually our 7-12 students will all have POD’s and we will have had 3 years of running this program. Our school is providing feedback to the District on what works and what needs to be changed or adapted. This technology roll out has been fully supported by our District as it is part of the larger roll out in the Province of Alberta where the traditional classroom is and will disappear and students will be empowered to learn any place ant anytime and teachers will become facilitators of learning, not the repositories of what is right and wrong.
This week we have been formally introduced to technology use planning, I say formally because through my work I have been integrating technology over the last year. We have been following an overall plan of integrating more and more technology into the classroom to enhance learning; our District published and shared their technology use plan several years ago. A technology use plan is the guidelines that will help ensure a greater chance of success when integrating technology into the classroom. I teach Social Studies and our Province embarked on implementing Problem Based Learning (PBL) seven years ago. Over the last several years we have been adding the technology to enhance learning. Our District has been implementing technology use planning for several years and as Al-Weschail states, this provides direction and helps users understand clearly where they are now and imagine where they want to be (Al-Weshail et. al., 1996). So far the results of integrating technology to support student learning have been generally successful. Our plan has been long term in scope, but with short term goals and objectives along the way. I believe that it’s important to have both long term and short term goals.
In the United States the Department of Education has been created a new National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) back in 2010.This plan is designed to bring best practices into use across various states involved in standardizing efforts. The goal is to support the creation of common standards and practices that then can be shared and implemented by teachers in the various districts. The plan lays out specific ways to integrate technology into the classroom. It is a document published by the United States Department of Education Office of Educational Technology with the purpose of setting a plan for technology implementation to reach the goal of increasing the rate of college graduates by 2020. The NETP sets out various goals and objectives, each of these goals is supported through recommendations and with collaboration across states, built in reflection, evaluation and flexibility, goals can be achieved and academic success improved. These goals, challenges and successes can be shared and used as a foundation for districts and schools creating technology use plans. Many of the recommendations are directed at the school level and can be incorporated into a technology use plans.
The National Education Technology Plan 2010 focuses on a 5 year plan, while the John See’s article “Developing Effective Technology Plans” (1992) states that technology should be a short term plan. I understand that the NETP needs to have longer plans as they are attempting to coordinate multiple states and institutions that do not respond to change quickly. Most educators and business leaders would agree that the USA needs to improve the quality of education and to improve the dropout rate. I read on CBS news where there are 3 million jobs unfilled in the USA because they can’t find skilled workers. The education system is failing America. While this is not a top down mandatory program, the NETP tries more to guide, fund, support and share the successes in the integration of technology at the local, district and state level.
I have to agree with See in the sense that technology changes too quickly to plan 5 years out. Right now several students have chosen to use tablets as tool to help them learn in my classroom. These devises are great for interacting with the web, as a vehicle to receive content. But they are not very practical when we demand students to create material for the web. Many tablets cannot function to the level of a laptop without the users having a strong technical background. But as stated earlier, technology changes quickly and so in a few years tablets maybe the smarted choice, maybe with more cloud computing the manipulation and creation of material will be easier.
For many schools and districts, computers have been used to teach technology skills, this was true for our school up until 5 years ago. We used to teach word processing, excel, and PowerPoint. Students now have been exposed to manipulating these programs early on in elementary school. So by the time they come to my school they function well due to the fact that they are familiar with these programs. So we no longer teach the MS Suite, we just expect students to know how to manipulate these and many other productivity programs. Things for our school really began to change when our District began to require teachers to begin implementing technology into the classroom. The process followed a plan to begin with baby steps with simple things like requiring teachers to put their marks and comments and course outline (as a minimum) into an online web platform called Desire to Learn (D2L) , this is similar to Moodle. Then each year our District required more and more of teachers’ course content to be made available to students on this platform. Many teachers initially were reluctant to embrace D2L as they saw it as extra work to move their work into the electronic format. Many teachers have taught the same material and lessons for years and they don’t like change so they stuck with tried and true and electronic copies of their work was not happening. But I very often taught different material and courses, and so I had already put my lessons into flash drives or saved electronically. I saw D2L to be transparent with students’ and parents, to enable students to see all of my lessons, activities and reviews. I saw this as a way to help students’ that missed school or had fallen behind to easily catch up and transition back into class or complete missing assignments. D2L allowed for me to make alterations to my lessons and activities from one class to another. After reflection or implementation, if a lesson needed to be tweaked or changed, it was easy to have it ready to go right away. No need to photocopy new material. Our Province has also embraced Problem Based Learning and the entire Social Studies curriculum is geared towards developing higher order of thinking and to develop an independent, strong academic student. Our students continually rank in the top 5 for academic success and will only improve as we continue to use technology to support problem based learning.
My experience with technology use has been ongoing for several years, but just this past year our school is the 3rd school to begin implementing a District wide program of having each student to have a computing devise every day in school. We are rolling it out with our Grade 9’s and 10’s this year and each year we will add a grade until all of our students will be expected to have and use a Personally Owned device (POD) Students in my classes use cell phones, tablets, iPad’s and laptops. Our school is entirely Wi-Fi enabled and we have a very large bandwidth portal. In fact our school has one the of the highest bandwidth usages in the District and we are the smallest school in our district with only 340 students in grades 7-12. So students and staff have fully embraced this opportunity to integrate technology into the classroom. Personally all of my lessons are PBL and students cannot function without a POD of some sort, we use Google Drive, D2L and others to work and share material. Our school District has a portion of the Google Cloud and every student and staff has a Google based e-mail and access to the entire Google suite of online systems. This roll out of technology integration has meant we have had to plan things out, revise and move forward. We spent time with the first school in our district to roll this program out; we met with staff and some students and received input, suggestions and ideas on how to implement the roll out with minimal glitches and challenges. However, as the technology plans stated, we ran into challenges. But with support and lots of money from our District we have had a successful implementation. Our student and parents have embraced the implementation of technology in to the classroom and look forward to further technology integration.
All of this success could not take place without a Technology Use Plan. Our Province, District and school all have technology use plans and like any good plan we revise and reflect and move forward with our successes.
References
Al-Weshail, A. S., Baxter, A., Cherry, W., Hill, E. W., Jones, II, C. R., Love, L. T., . . . Woods, J. C. (1996, May 7). Guidebook for developing an effective instructional technology plan: Version 2.0.Mississippi State University. Retrieved from http://www.nctp.com/downloads/guidebook.pdf
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2010).Transforming American education: Learning powered by technology. Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/netp2010.pdf
AECT Standards
Standard 3: Utilization
3.4 Policies and Regulations
For this assignment, I first needed to read a copy of the 2012 Horizon Report put together by the New Media Consortium. The Horizon Report shares information about upcoming technologies that may impact education in both the k-12 and higher education settings.
This important report focuses on the new and future technology trends that will impact education. Many of these trends are happening right now and as technology teachers, this report is crucial to our understanding of where we are and where the future of education will be in the near future. The report touched upon the growing trend of cell phones and tablets in the classroom. This is happening already in many schools and is a trend that will only get more popular. In fact the school I teach at has begun the implementation of this. This year we have our entire grade 9 and 10 students required to bring and use a computer of some sort. These personally owned devices (POD’s) can be cell phones, tablets and laptops. The lessons I have developed focus on problem based learning and each student needs to have a POD to be able to function in research, class discussions, blogs and the occasional group assignment. Eventually all students in grades 7-12 at my school will require POD’s, and this is part of a greater trend in the province of Alberta where students will have greater control to be able to complete their education were and when they want. In many ways the old traditional classrooms will disappear and be replaced by a dynamic and interactive classroom and teachers rolls will have a much greater role in technology and the facilitation of learning.
The lesson attached still has to be facilitated by a teacher, students need to follow the instructions and will need help with time management. Students in my class know how to open and invite others into their Google drive documents, if your students don’t know how to do that, teach them before you begin this lesson.
When I have taught this lesson in the past students offer very harsh and unreasonable punishment suggestions for the accused offenders in the case studies. Before I teach this lesson students have been introduced to alternative and reasonable punishment for youth. The focus being upon ensuring all parties are treated fairly, this includes the victim, the accused and all aspects of the justice system. So it’s important to remind students that 5 years in jail for stealing lip stick is not reasonable. Also having taught this unit the only current examples of youth being charged with crimes are usually very violent and aberrant as the common and petty crimes tend not to reach the front pages of the local paper. Also I have invited a youth justice lawyer and or a youth support group to come in and talk to the students about youth crime and the role citizens play in the justice system.
Over all students like the case studies and they like to present and defend their positions, using Google Drive real-time features make this a fun and easy way to have a discussion and debate.
I hope my insights help you if you use this lesson.
The lesson I created is one I use in my class, in fact we will be covering the justice system as it relates to youth starting next week. This lesson requires the use of a POD, students need to have a Google Drive account and wifi internet access.
AECT Standards:
Standard 1: Design
1.1 Instructional Systems Design
1.3 Instructional Strategies
I have met this standard by researching and analyzing technology trends through the 2012 Horizon report. I have also created an original, lesson plan that meets the Alberta Program of Studies that relates to youth and the justice system.
Standard 3: Utilization
3.1 Media Utilization
I used many different media resources to develop a developmentally appropriate lesson plan.
3.3 Implementation and Institutionalization
2.3 Computer-Based Technologies
I have implemented this lesson plan into my classroom where we have the necessary resources available to us, including wifi, a District Google account for each student, access to a computer, on line lesson organized D2L.
This assignment was a group project that required us to work collaboratively to solve a problem as explained below. We used Google Drive to create, chat and collaborate, it was a great opportunity to work online with a group all located in different locations. All in all I found it to be an interesting and enjoyable experience. The assignment is described below.
As a member of this Task Force to the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, you are assigned the task of evaluating these alternatives, possibly suggesting other alternatives, and giving recommendations. She has asked your group to prepare a multimedia presentation that will be delivered to all the relevant stakeholders. For this assignment, you will collaborate with your small group, using Google Presentation to address the following: 1. Discuss and compare digital divide and digital inequality; 2. List the seven options suggested by the State Superintendent of Public Instruction; 3. Describe any alternative(s) in addition to the seven you believe should be considered; and 4. Identify the strongest alternatives and the weakest alternatives and why you rate them as you do. While the Internet may be seen as one of the most popular vehicles for the dissemination of information, it may also be viewed as one that is easily accessible to certain classes of people, as is out of reach for many, giving only limited access to some. Hence emerging from this predicament are two distinct variables: Digital Divide and Digital Inequality. However, before one can adequately discuss the topic Digital Divide versus Digital Inequality, he/she should be able to distinguish between the two variables.
As a group we came up with what we believed to be pros and cons of the options listed above. We felt there was no one simple solution to these problems. We felt there had to be an array of options that needed coordination and a focused approach. In the presentation shown below our group felt there was a distinct need to solve this problem because according to statistics provided by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United States is ranked nineteenth in the world for providing internet services for its people. This position should be a message for the USA for them to re-group and re-tool in order to re-claim their rightful position in the technological global marketplace.
In 2004 the President made the forward thinking statement that that “Within the next five years, they’ll make it possible for businesses to deploy the next generation of high-speed wireless coverage to 98 percent of all Americans” After those years have passed and the goals have not been met I wonder, given the budgetary challenges faced by the United States, that this goal will not be met even after the President finishes his last term four years from now.
Some areas of the US have a distinct digital inequality as some students go home to their broadband high speed internet and other students go home to their slow dial- up connection. Though both have access to the internet, those with a faster connection will eventually get their work done more efficiently, for example a student accessing a school based web site to get updates and connect with other students and learners, while dial up users are unable to do much more than view web pages and have limited internet experience. Given the growing economic divergence in the US, where the middle class is disappearing we will continue to see that thisl trend will continue as only the surviving middle and upper classes will be able to afford broadband and if the marginalized of the society gets access, it is still going to be the ‘slow’ dial- up connection; as a result, digital inequality will still linger.
However there are glimmers of hope as one emerging trend that needs careful attention and consideration is the fast growing use of smart devises, phones and tablets to the classroom. Several school districts and States are now mandating that all students in school will be provided with a computer and have promised broadband network support.
I teach in Alberta Canada and our Province has made integration of technology in the classroom a major goal and has supported this goal with significant resources, time and effort. Our students continually rank in the top 5 in the world for math and science test score results and this will only increase as the technological integration continues. It seems like it’s a full on race as we try to stay competitive with the rest of the world that we are all connected and interconnected with.
References
Barzilai-Nahon, K. (2006). Gaps and bits: Conceptualizing measurements for digital divide/s. The Information Society, 22(5), 269-278. (PDF file)
Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003. (2006). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006065
Cooper, M. (2004). Expanding the digital divide and falling behind in broadband. Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union. Retrieved from http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/digitaldivide.pdf
DiMaggio, P., & Hargittai, E. (2001). From the ‘digital divide’ to ‘digital inequality: Studying Internet use as penetration increases. Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Working Paper Series number, 15. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/~arts…gittai.pdf
DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Celeste, C., & Shafer, S. (2004). From unequal access to differentiated use: A literature review and agenda for research on digital inequality. Social Inequality, 355-400. Retrieved from http://www.eszter.com/research…uality.pdf
Hargittai, E. (2003). The digital divide and what to do about it. New Economy Handbook, 821-839. Retrieved from http://www.eszter.com/research…divide.pdf
ITU Country rankings. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.itu.int/net/itunews/issues/2010/03/26.aspx
McConnaughey, J., Nila, C. A., & Sloan, T. (1995). Falling through the net: A survey of the “have nots” in rural and urban America. National Telecommunications And Information Administration. Retrieved from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/fallingthru.html
Cooper, M. (2004). Expanding the digital divide and falling behind in broadband. Consumer Federation of America and Consumers Union, October. Retrieved from http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/digitaldivide.pdf.
DiMaggio, P., & Hargittai, E. (2001). From the ‘digital divide’ to ‘digital inequality’: Studying Internet use as penetration increases. Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Working Paper Series number, 15. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/workpap/WP15%20-%20DiMaggio+Hargittai.pdf.
DeBell, M. and Chapman, C. (2006). Computer and Internet Use by Students in 2003 (NCES 2006-065). US Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.
AECT Standards
This assignment conforms to the following AECT Standards, through the use of collaborative and integrated media technologies (Google docs, Google presentation), discussion of real world policy and regulations in an attempt to utilize technology for the benefit of others, and effective management of available resources.
This project addressed the following AECT Standards:
2.4 Integrated Technologies
Working with a group with members spread out across North America, we were required to work with multiple technology tools and integrate them to complete a project.
3.2 Diffusion of Innovations
This standard was achieved through our work with new tools.
3.4 Policies and Regulations
We addressed a critical issue in the realm of technology education. We made recommendations on policy implementation based on our discussions. We didn’t always agree, but we created some meaningful conversation.
4.2 Resource Management
It took careful planning and resource management to collaborate across timezones, work, and personal obligations.