Just read this news item in the NY Times about a firm that offers online math courses to American school students.  A typical example of use of technology for objectivist teaching (refer chapter by Robyler).  Reading the article made me wonder why “drill and practice” style programs (like the one described) manage to get such good press.

Programs such as the one described in this article can easily be shown to get results (ie improved scores in traditional tests). Paul’s blog points out there haven’t been too many studies to prove the effectiveness of constructivist teaching approaches – I think the reason must lie partly in the fact that our assessment methods are still rooted in objectivist frameworks (at least in mathematics).

A conundrum that will no doubt face us as beginning teachers!

 References

Roblyer, M.(2006). Learning Theories as Bases for Integration. In M. Roblyer (Ed). Integrating educational technology into teaching.  4th Edtn. pp 36-52. Pearson/Merrill Prentice HallUpper Saddle River, N.J.

I just read an interesting article in today’s Washington Post about how some schools in the US are using internet-based classroom portals to provide information to students and parents on student progress and assessment outcomes as also information on assignments that need to be completed.  For parents it provides a connection to their children’s academic life – a connection that diminishes when the children move to high school.  This would also ensure that parents receive ongoing reporting on their children’s progress at school rather than the once/twice a year written report.

The prac. school I was at already maintained online markbooks. All that would be required would be to enable secure access to students’ records to only those authorised (carers, teachers, student themselves). 

Grandmother’s report card http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriabernal/2289482819/  Made available under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licence

I just read an interesting article by Prensky (if you can ignore the repeated references to teachers who “look stupid”). He makes a valid point that technology is changing so rapidly that just as we think we’ve mastered a new technology, it may have already become outdated.  So rather than asking for training on some new technology (who does anyway? arent we all self taught on the things we do use?), we’d be better off learning from our students or letting them use the technology while we provide “evaluation, context and nuance to help the kids truly understand” (which we should already know how to do as teachers).

One of his examples: to use podcasting in our teaching we do not need to know how to podcast.  Students already know how (or can teach themselves and each other how to).  So we get the students to make a podcast and our job as teachers then is to listen to these podcasts, evaluate them and provide feedback to students on appropriateness of content.

Hmmmm…. Maybe.

The above approach wouldnt work for something like LAMS, where the teacher needs to “author” or create a lesson sequence for the students.  So teachers would need to get familiar with LAMS, if they are to use it in their teaching.

Also, even with things like podcasting or voicethread, whilst I agree that we do not need to become the “resident expert” in order to use it in our teaching, we do need to be familiar enough with it to be able to assess the possible uses for it in our lessons.  In that sense, we do need to keep ourselves updated with the new developments to the extent that we know what is out there and how it can be used.

Came across an interesting article in the NY Times about a school where every student has a laptop in class instead of textbooks.   Some of the issues raised are about how the teacher competes with a myriad distractions in gaining students’ attention and in getting students to discriminate and sift through increasing amounts of info.   In the end we need to put technology in its place. Have a read!

The idea that it is not acceptable for teachers to be technologically illiterate (see Karl Fisch’s blog post) is interesting, and one I agree with in principle. As educators charged with the responsibility of equipping our students for the future, we would be failing them if we continued to rely solely on traditional teaching methods and technologies.   

The workplaces of today (why talk of the future) use technology to a great extent and as a person who has recently moved from working in industry to a teaching career, I am appalled at how technologically backward our schools environments are.  Yes, we have computer labs in schools where students can go a few times a week, a vast improvement over a decade ago; but most school environments of today (and I am conscious that I am generalizing from one reference point based on my recent practicum) are way behind workplaces of today let alone the workplaces of tomorrow. 

Also, how can we expect teachers to really integrate technology into their teaching when they are not even provided a work computer at school?  At the school I went to for my recent prac, the ratio of computers to teachers in the math staff room was 1:3.