Are We There Yet? (8)

In this article, one line really stood out to me: “I am 34 years old and don't think twice about cordless phones or wireless remotes on televisions, but I bet they were a big deal when they first came out.” Obviously I am not 34, but I am 21. I’m not that far behind a 34 year old technologically. I was born into a technological age; my family had a computer as soon as they first came out, I’ve never gone a day without a television in my house where I don’t have to get up to change the channel, and cell phones have been second nature to me for the last fifteen years. However, not everyone was born into the technological age that I was. 

I had a multitude of teachers growing up that were around fifty or above in age. They were not born into a technologically advanced age that I was born into. I still hear from my mom about how she only had five channels growing up and she had to get up to change the channel. Of course I just roll my eyes and brush it off, but it does play a big part in the use of technology in not only the classroom, but every day life. My mom is an accountant and when her boss decided it was time to take taxes to the computer instead of doing it by hand, my mom boycotted; she wanted nothing to do with technology because she had been doing the taxes by hand for 25 years, so why change now? This is very similar to integrating technology into the classroom.

Similarly to my pervious post, educators who have a routine and are set in their ways without technology don’t want to be told that they need to bring technology into their classrooms after going 10, 15, 20 years without it. They need to be shown a pretty good argument as to why they should integrate it, and this article does a very good job of breaking down the reasons in a classroom friendly way. 

Old Dog, New Tricks (7)

“There can be infinite uses of computer and of new age technology, but if teachers themselves are not able to bring it into the classroom and make it work, then it fails.”

This is a quote from Nancy Kassebaum (US Senate). I’ve been reading comments and blogs on technology in the classroom, and it seems as though “You can’t teach old dogs new tricks” is an appropriate fall back for teachers already in the system. Technology is a huge part of the fast-moving generation that we, as future educators, are a part of. We have to be the new face of teaching in schools, and technology is the way to be that new face. However, it’s easier said than done. 

With classes such as this one, we’re learning how to integrate technology into a classroom through reading about it, but without actually having a classroom to integrate it into, it’s not as easy to do as we would like. But, just the knowledge alone can help us. Therefore, we need to make sure that we take every opportunity that we can to bring technology into our classrooms. My question is though: If the district that you’re teaching in doesn’t have the funding or capabilities to integrate technology?

Not only does the economy that we’re suffering through right now hinder our abilities to easily integrate technology due to lack of resources, but there isn’t funding for professional development either. If a current teacher doesn’t know how to seamlessly bring technology into their classroom or better yet, doesn’t know how to teach through or work technology, how are they expected to have it in their classroom? Without the adequate funds and resources, it’s going to be nearly impossible for teachers who are used to working sans technology to just put it into their classrooms and not hit technical snags or simply not be apt enough in the technology to use it correctly.

Technology in the Brain (6)

I recently stumbled upon this New York Times article by Annie Murphy Paul, in which she talks about the importance fiction has on one’s brain. In several studies mentioned throughout the article, it is proven that fiction, the ability to remove ourselves from reality and place ourselves within another life, gives us more skills than just having the ability to read. One study shows that reading sensory words affects our brain the same way that actually having an interaction with those words would. Another study suggests that reading about an action affects the brain the same way that actually performing an action would. I have to say, these studies and this article have me wondering: are we focusing too much on actual technology and forgetting about the technology we all already possess? 

I’ve always been insanely fascinated by the way the brain and the human body work. I have also always been enamored with fiction. I love the way that authors have the ability to make their readers feel out-of-body. Something about being able to be someone else, to be able to live their lives and have their friends, or to be able to be there for them and feel what they’re feeling gives a reader the ability to be anything they want to be. But I feel like that comes with the ability to turn a page, to smell the crisp pages of a new book, and to feel the print on the paper. There’s something too artificial about reading from an e-reader, in my opinion, and because of that, I think that people aren’t getting the satisfaction of fiction and reading that they used to.

Along with that, since reading this article, I’ve given a lot of thought to where education stands in this whole dilemma. And I believe that education stands in the way of a student being able to feel the emotions that they should when reading. Teachers and professors force their students to read and think how they want them to about a book that they’re reading and because of that, students aren’t able to fully experience a story. Along with that, at least in my experience, teachers often show the movie version of the book at hand either while or after reading a novel. I hate when teachers do this. Not only are the students shown how the characters are expected to look and how the actions are expected to take place, the film versions are often very skewed versions of the stories. It takes away from what our brains give us creatively regarding the story.

This article gives us wonderful insight into how the technology of our brains is often looked past and brushed under the rug due to tangible technology taking over. There comes a point in our lives where we either have to stand with technology or stand against technology. In many cases, I stand with technology, but when it comes to the magic of books and reading, I whole-heartedly stand against technology.  

Technology "in" Schools (Interactivity #5) (5)

NETS-S Lesson Plan

For the purpose of this activity, I interviewed two separate teachers from two different school districts. One is a tenth grade modified English teacher and twelfth grade AP English teacher in Vernon while the other one is a fourth and fifth grade Special Education teacher in Wantage. Prior to interviewing them for this project, I had observed both classes, as well as helped out with their classes multiple times. Because I had done this before I knew about the technology standards, I didn’t know to look out for whether or not the districts seemed to be integrating the standards into their curriculum. 

When I interviewed the English teacher based on the questions in the NETS Adoption Survey, he seemed a little bit confused about what NETS was in its entirety. He quickly introduced himself to the standards and almost immediately told me that his district has not yet introduced NETS to them. He said that the district has introduced a technology initiative but said initiative was not nearly as specific as the NETS standards. He didn’t really go into the technology that is used in the schools, but he did mention the use of SmartBoards in some of the classrooms, as well as the use of technology as a device to further lessons. Further than that, there wasn’t much else that the district did that he knew of, or spoke of. 

The Special Education teacher was introduced to the NETS standards prior to talking to me, but she only really knew what they were and that was the extent of it. Since I digressed from the survey for her, she didn’t really talk about the integration of NETS into the district, but she did talk about the technology integration in her classroom. However, because she is a Special Ed teacher, her classroom and the other special needs specific classrooms, as well as the library, the computer lab, and the therapy (speech, physical, and occupational) rooms are far more technologically advanced than the general education classrooms. 

As far as I could tell, the technologies at these two schools were the most basic technological integrations compared to what I was expecting in regards to the NETS standards. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting considering I had been in the classrooms before and hadn’t noticed much other technology than the occasional SmartBoard use in Wantage and computer work in Vernon. In accordance to that, I guess I wasn’t surprised necessarily by the teachers reactions, but I was generally displeased with the integration.

As a future English and hopefully special needs educator, I would try to have the NETS standards more fully integrated because I think that they are important in this technologically advancing world that we live in. Of course, when I’m an educator the standards will probably be even different from these ones. I believe that technology in the classroom is extremely important, and in order for it to work, educators need to want it in their classrooms.

Interactivity #4 (4)

Lesson Plan Analysis Map

The reason that I chose this lesson plan if because of the vocabulary that is required of the students and for the integration of technology that is so relevant to the filmmaking aspect of the lesson. Not only is the teacher required to use technology and understand what they're doing, but the students also have to understand and use the technology that they're given. Also, the students are required to work together, go out and do something outside of the classroom, and they need to be able to integrate what they’re learning in the classroom to what they’re filming outside of the classroom. Integration of classroom and technology is a huge part of this lesson plan.

There were some evident gaps. It was hard to rally in the lesson plan since it is such a drawn out lesson, taking up more than two weeks of class time, but once I got a handle on it, it was easier to pinpoint what needed to be added where. I noticed that there wasn’t much student involvement in the lesson until they had to film, so I added some more group work, as well as more teacher-student collaborations before the end product was due. The students and teachers need to work pretty closely with one-another on this project so in order for that to happen, they needed to have more connectivity during instead of just at the end.

The curriculum goal is to have a finished film as the end product of this two-week lesson, therefore film equipment, editing software, computers, and projectors, Smartboards, or some other kind of viewing stations were a vital necessity to the end result of this lesson. In order for the students to succeed with this project, technology both as part of their involvement and the teachers involvement was extremely important.

Reflecting (Interactivity #3) (3)

      As an English major, it doesn't surprise me that most of our technologies are under the "authoring" category. It was a little bit difficult to find technologies that were specifically related to English education initially. However, upon further research, I found a significant amount of technologies that were not necessarily specific to English education but could easily be used specifically for English classes. Many of our technologies are self-expression websites in the form of social networking, such as Tumblr and Think. These technologies are great both for the classroom and for outside of the classroom. They allow students to express themselves and to connect with people that are simply doing the same thing as they are: expressing themselves. Most websites like that are non-judgement zones, therefore giving the students a safe haven. As a collective group of technologies, I think that we chose technologies that are both relevant to the classroom and to the outside world. Many of them, though not specifically, involove some form of social networking which help the students to connect with other students that maybe aren’t in the same year or the same district as they are. Though social networking sites aren’t always condoned by educational professionals, the ones that we picked as a group are beneficial to a students education as well as with their personal lives. With the advances in educational technology being in the forefront of everything in this day and age, we as future educators need to accept and respond to them, and figure out a way to integrate them into our classroom. These technologies will definitely be making their way (if they haven’t already) into classrooms across the country, and most definitely ours when we start teaching, so opening our eyes to them now if only benefitting us and our future students.

"How Far We've Come" (Interactivity #2) (2)

With the advancements in technology, soon enough students won't know how to do anything by hand and they will solely rely on technology to do everything for them.

Source:
http://liz-meyer.com/2695755/NY-Times-RFD-Evolution