Using Technology Appropriately

Thanks to mass production and constant innovation, average personal computers are cheaper and easier for schools to afford. The question of technology access, therefore, has shifted from a question commonly referred to as the “digital divide” to a question of what knowledge should be made available to students. In considering this question, schools or school districts have had to put policies and procedures into place. In addition, many schools—as have many public libraries which offer Web-browsing service to the public—have opted to purchase expensive, and oftentimes wrongfully restrictive, software filters. Technology access now primarily examines the who, what, when, where, and how of culling material from the Internet.

“Technology is interpreted as process, not merely in terms of hardware (such as computers or television or projectors), but in terms of learners and their relationship to the people, events, places, and things through which they learn.” (Peck, 1989) This appears to be the crux of this article. Although schools establish policies, which set the basic parameters of how appropriate conduct is defined, and procedures, which deal with the application of the policies on a more detailed level, these can be as limiting and self-defeating as the filtering softwares used.

Prince William County, for example, has blocking software which bans searches of such innocuous terms as “relationship” or “fidelity.” Friel writes in her article, “Using Technology Appropriately: Policy, Leadership, and Ethics,” that “(B)ecause censorship is subjective, however, perhaps the best way to approach Internet use is to stress guidance rather than censorship” (LeBaron, 2001). And perhaps it is this vision, of technology as process—and not as a mechanism which must be impeded—which would allow it to be simultaneously productive and liberating.

Many schools, as part of their Code of Behavior, have put into place policies and procedures regarding computer usage. By outlining what is considered inappropriate use of computers, and setting up procedures for discovering and dealing with offenses, school administrators can be smug in the knowledge that their work is done. For instance, in Prince William County, students may not use the e-mail or instant messaging features which have become an integral part of computers' societal and social functions. Unfortunately, many worthwhile projects cannot be undertaken because of this restriction.

Language Arts teachers carry the bulk of the burden of implementing the Virginia Computer/Technology Standards of Learning. In Prince William County this load is primarily shouldered by 8th and 11th grade-level English teachers who guide students in writing research papers. Part of the mandate is to educate students on the issue of plagiarism, explicitly defined in the County’s Code of Behavior as cheating. The policy reads: “(C)heating includes the giving or receiving of a computer file, programs, part of a program, or other computer-based information without specific teacher direction or approval” (Code of Behavior, 2006). To ensure that cheating is not occurring, students are asked to read information found on the Internet and write about it in their own words on three by five notecards, citing the source on the card with its specific location. It is reported that this exercise only moderately stems the “cutting and pasting” behavior so prevalent among students.

Perhaps our task as educators should be to arm students with a vision, to lift students beyond the immediacy of the search or task-at-hand. Students know they are only offered part of the power of computers. Perhaps this leads many to feelings of disenfranchisement. Perhaps this explains why policies and procedures are constantly being challenged in an attempt to play with or uncover computers' untapped potential. Naturally students must be alerted to the potential danger zones. However, educators should be like beacons, guiding students, keeping them safe, alerting them to storms on the horizon, and helping them find their place in the greater scheme of things.

Sources:

Code of Behavior. (2006). Prince William County Public Schools.

LeBaron, J. (Ed.). (2001). Technology in its place: Sucessful technology infusion in schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Peck, Kyle (1989). National Forum on Information Literacy. Retrieved September 27, 2006, from Association for Educational Communication and Technology Web site: http://www.infolit.org/members/aect.htm

The Politics of Empowering the Vision

(Chapters 7 & 8 in Technology in its place)

Chapter 7

Perry and Areglado make an important distinction in their article, “Computers are here” (LeBaron and Collier, 2001) between principals as managers and principals as leaders. This distinction prompted me to examine the principals I have known in a new light. Light was directed on whether these principals were happy with the status quo or placed a priority on technology integration.

Making technology integration a priority is key. Once the principal has promulgated this vision, and enlisted the support of key teachers who are opinion leaders among their peers, there is a snowball effect. These opinion leaders are able to mobilize the rest of the staff to embrace the principal’s vision. A review of the first post points out that VISION is the first of nine principles required for effective leadership in technology integration.

Once the vision has been promulgated by the principal, it must be embraced by opinion leaders who carry it to the rest of the staff. However, these opinion leaders must also be empowered. It is crucial that an infrastructure be put into place that will allow the teacher leaders to meet, to develop a strategy, to provide for teacher training, to eliminate the naysayers, and to celebrate each incremental change as a victory. (Naturally, these celebrations should not be so elaborate as to stop progress for all to sit on their laurels.) All of these moves will ensure that the vision becomes part of the institution.

Chapter 8

Isa Zimmerman makes the important point that the vision needs to come from the top, namely the state governor. Also, Zimmerman is the first author I have come across to give a role in the vision to students. An example is given of high schoolers sponsoring a teacher-training. How wonderful is that! Indeed, I often learn best from my own students! Zimmerman is also forward-thinking in noting that school boards must devote more energy towards bringing local businesses into the mix.

Unlike Perry and Areglado, who believe that teachers should be coaxed into the vision via opinion leaders in their ranks, Zimmerman believes that the vision for technology integration should be imposed upon them. This imposition would merely come in the form of teachers’ annual performance evaluation. It is ironic that for one advocating the use of politics by school systems for building public support, teachers are not considered part of the political equation.

In evaluating our school system’s efforts in promulgating a vision for technology integration, I found administration sorely lacking in this area. Only one school—an elementary school at that—was found to have a website on which their school technology mission statement was listed with a three-year goal for teacher training and integration of technology into the curriculum. Our state and county school administrations would benefit from this school’s example, as well as from reading Technology in its place: Successful technology infusion in schools!

Sources:

LeBaron, J. and C. Collier (Eds.). (2001). Technology in its place: Successful technology infusion in schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

(2004). School Technology Mission Statement. Retrieved September 20, 2006, from Mary F. Williams Elementary Web site: http://www.pwcs.edu/marywilliams/itideas/index.html

Teaching for Understanding with Technology, Chapters 1 and 2

Teaching for Understanding with Technology
Chapters 1 and 2

Teaching for understanding is not a new concept. It can probably be first traced back to the Russian’s launching of Sputnik. Sputnik brought about an awakening in scholarly circles, fueled by fear, that shook the foundations of the educational establishment. “New” approaches were welcomed. A similar wave of reform has since been instituted which seeks to embrace new technologies into the curriculum. Wiske, in her book, Teaching for Understanding with Technology, attempts to do that. She offers a framework to be considered which appears to piggyback Jerome Bruner’s educational theory and Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design.

Wiske introduces a Teaching for Understanding framework. This framework is divided into five key topics designed to evaluate the usefulness of a specific technology or a panoply of technology tools. The steps to consider are:

• What are the generative topics?
• What are the understanding goals?
• What are the performances of understanding?
• How do we produce ongoing assessment?
• How do we form reflective, collaborative communities?

Generative topics

“Ideally interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus to learning, rather than such external goals as grades or later competitive advantage… it is nonetheless worth considering how interest in learning per se can be stimulated.” (Bruner, 1978) These are usually a cross-curricular, real-life topic that the teacher is intrigued by. The idea here is that enthusiasm is contagious and for the students to become engaged, the teacher needs to be engaged first.

Understanding Goals

These “focus on key concepts and disciplined ways of thinking, not just on the isolated facts and formulas that form the core of many traditional teaching materials” (Wiske, 2005). Wiggins and McTighe define “understanding” as meaning “that a student has something more thant just textbook knowledge and skill—that a student really ‘gets it’” (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998).

Performances of Understanding

These are best described by Jerome Bruner in his famous book, The Process of Education: “(T)he schoolboy learning physics is a physicist, and it is easier for him to learn physics behaving like a physicist than doing something else” (Bruner, 1978) New software tools allow the student-physicist to immerse himself/herself into the role and to illustrate his/her knowledge through “performance.”

Ongoing Assessment

Best described in Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe who write that “the assessment of understanding should be thought of in terms of a collection of evidence over time instead of an event—-a single moment-in-time test at the end of instruction—-as so often happens in current practice (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998). Creating e-portfolios, posting to websites, querying experts or fellow students are all new ways of assessing only recently made possible through the advent of technology.

Reflective, Collaborative Communities

In Computers as mindtools for schools, Jonassen cites a study by Harasim, author of Online education: An environment for collaboration and intellectual amplification, which found that “learners perceive themselves as reflecting more on their thoughts while computer conferencing than when engaged in face-to-face or telephone conversation” (Jonassen, 2000). No doubt the interaction that the Worldwide Web affords learners is very engaging. In addidtion, the solitary moments spent formulating one’s thoughts before transmitting them through Cyberspace are moments of self-reflection intertwined with moments of collaboration.

Sources

Bruner, J. (1978). The Process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Jonassen, David (2000). Computers as mindtools for schools. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wiske, M., Rennebohm-Franz, K., & Breit, L. (2005). Teaching for understanding with technology. San Francisco, CA: Joseey-Bass.

Teaching for Understanding with Technology, Chapters 1 and 2

Teaching for Understanding with Technology
Chapters 1 and 2

Teaching for understanding is not a new concept. It can probably be first traced back to the Russian’s launching of Sputnik. Sputnik brought about an awakening in scholarly circles, fueled by fear, that shook the foundations of the educational establishment. “New” approaches were welcomed. A similar wave of reform has since been instituted which seeks to embrace new technologies into the curriculum. Wiske, in her book, Teaching for Understanding with Technology, attempts to do that. She offers a framework to be considered which appears to piggyback Jerome Bruner’s educational theory and Wiggins and McTighe’s Understanding by Design writings.

Wiske introduces a Teaching for Understanding framework. This framework is divided into five key topics designed to evaluate the usefulness of a specific technology or a panoply of technology tools. The steps to consider are:

• What are the generative topics?
• What are the understanding goals?
• What are the performances of understanding?
• How do we produce ongoing assessment?
• How do we form reflective, collaborative communities?

Generative topics

“Ideally interest in the material to be learned is the best stimulus to learning, rather than such external goals as grades or later competitive advantage… it is nonetheless woth considering how interest in learning per se can be stimulated.” (Bruner, 1978) These are usually a cross-curricular, real-life topic that the teacher is intrigued by. The idea here is that enthusiasm is contagious and for the students to become engaged, the teacher needs to be engaged first.

Understanding Goals

These “focus on key concepts and disciplined ways of thinking, not just on the isolated facts and formals that form the core of many traditional teaching materials” (Wiske, 2005). Wiggins and McTighe define “understanding” as meaning “that a student has something more thant just textbook knowledge and skill—that a student really ‘gets it’” (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998).

Performances of Understanding

These are best described by Jerome Bruner in his famous book, The Process of Education: “(T)he schoolboy learning physics is a physicist, and it is easier for him to learn physics behaving like a physicist than doing something else” (Bruner, 1978) New software tools allow the student-physicist to immerse himself/herself into the role and to illustrate his/her knowledge through “performance.”

Ongoing Assessment

Best described in Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe who write that “the assessment of understanding should be thought of in terms of a collection of evidence over time instead of an event—a signle moment-in-time test at the end of instruction—as so often happens in current practice (Wiggins and McTighe, 1998). Creating e-portfolios, posting to websites, querying experts or fellow students are all new ways of assessing only recently made possible with the advent of technology.

Reflective, Collaborative Communities

In Computers as mindtools for schools, Jonassen cites a study by Harasim, author of Online education: An environment for collaboration and intellectual amplification, which found that “learners perceive themselves as reflecting more on their thoughts while computer conferencing than when engaged in face-to-face or telephone conversation” (Jonassen, 2000). No doubt the interaction that the Worldwide Web affords learners is very engaging. In addidtion, the solitary moments spent formulating one’s thoughts before transmitting them through cyberspace are moments of self-reflection intertwined with moments of collaboration.

Sources

Bruner, J. (1978). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Jonassen, David (2000). Computers as Mindtools for Schools. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by Design.Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Wiske, M., Rennebohm-Franz, K., & Breit, L. (2005). Teaching for understanding with technology. San Francisco, CA: Joseey-Bass.

Key Points in Chapter 1 of Technology in its Place

Technology in its Place - Chapter 1

The three central points Debbie Abilock, librarian at the Nueva School for gifted and talented students in San Francisco, makes in her article “Using Technology to Enhance Student Inquiry” are:

1. Librarians should be utilized in the curriculum development equation.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Librarians are often sadly underutilized in our schools. Yet, Who is better poised to advance the cause of developing information literate students than our librarians? Are they not, after all, educators too?

“New technologies such as the Internet give students access to literally millions of documents (Jukes, Dosaj, Macdonald, 2000). Sifting through all that the Internet has to offer is a daunting task. Why not call on those who are trained information sifters? Leaving librarians out of the loop is detrimental to the entire process of education.

2. Information literacy equals metacognition. “The essence of information literacy encompasses processes such as clarifying the task, locating appropriate materials, making decisions related to their authenticity, organizing the ideas, using the information to address real life issues, and then evaluating what has been produced” (Jukes, Dosaj, Macdonald, 2000). Oftentimes one does not consider that in researching, one is evaluating not only the information at hand, but periodically detaching oneself from the process in order to evaluate this process.

3. Role-playing and collaboration are essential to deep understanding. “From their investigations students learned to describe the past through the eyes of those who were there” (LeBaron, Collier, 2001). This quote from Debbie Abilock is the key to a constructivist view where learning is subjective but where, with the aid of others, one gradually places oneself in another’s shoes. This process develops and grows a person.

Sources

Jukes, I., Dosaj, A., & Macdonald, B. (2000). net.savvy: Building information literacy in the lassroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

LeBaron, J., & Collier, C. (2001). Technology in its place: Successful technology infusion in schools.San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Key Points in Chapter 1 of Technology in its Place

Technology in its Place - Chapter 1

The three central points Debbie Abilock, librarian at the Nueva School for gifted and talented students in San Francisco, makes in her article “Using Technology to Enhance Student Inquiry” are:

1. Librarians should be utilized in the curriculum development equation.
Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Librarians are often sadly underutilized in our schools. Yet, Who is better poised to advance the cause of developing information literate students than our librarians? Are they not, after all, educators too?

“New technologies such as the Internet give students access to literally millions of documents (Jukes, Dosaj, Macdonald, 2000). Sifting through all that the Internet has to offer is a daunting task. Why not call on those who are trained information sifters? Leaving librarians out of the loop is detrimental to the entire process of education.

2. Information literacy equals metacognition. “The essence of information literacy encompasses processes such as clarifying the task, locating appropriate materials, making decisions related to their authenticity, organizing the ideas, using the information to address real life issues, and then evaluating what has been produced” (Jukes, Dosaj, Macdonald, 2000). Oftentimes one does not consider that in researching, one is evaluating not only the information at hand, but periodically detaching oneself from the process in order to evaluate this process.

3. Role-playing and collaboration are essential to deep understanding. “From their investigations students learned to describe the past through the eyes of those who were there” (LeBaron, Collier, 2001). This quote from Debbie Abilock is the key to a constructivist view where learning is subjective but where, with the aid of others, one gradually places oneself in another’s shoes. This process develops and grows a person.

Sources

Jukes, I., Dosaj, A., & Macdonald, B. (2000). net.savvy: Building information literacy in the lassroom. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

LeBaron, J., & Collier, C. (2001). Technology in its place: Successful technology infusion in schools.San Francisco: Jossey-

Audioblog on Leadership Principles in Technology

After having experienced podcasts in my previous class: Information Literacy in the Digital Age, I thought it would be fun to do an audioblog--especially since these are available free from this site! Also thought it would save on the eye strain! ENJOY!

Brigitte

For those who wish to read along as they listen to the Audioblog, below is the text:

Welcome to my audioblog. This is Brigitte Melton speaking.

This audioblog is designed for Dr. Coffman’s class on Leadership in Educational Technology at the University of Mary Washington. Dr. Coffman’s assignment asks for a review of Knowledge Loom’s nine principles of effective leadership in technology integration. The Knowledge Loom website was developed by the Education Alliance at Brown University. Funded by the Institute for Education Sciences in the U. S. Department of Education, Knowledge Loom was designed by educators for educators. Its purpose is to disseminate success stories in the area of technology integration. The Education Alliance is eager for our success stories too. Perhaps one day our stories will be part of the Knowledge Loom website.

The first of the nine principles is Vision. Leaders have it. Nothing can go forward and be successful without it. Homage is paid to Apple Computer’s Classrooms of Tomorrow Model introduced in 1985. The five steps teachers go through in learning to integrate technology into their instruction are entry, adoption, adaptation, appropriation, and innovation. So, basically, just like anything new, you approach it carefully and when you finally embrace it, you’re ready to become creative with it.

The second principle is Planning. The four steps are building the technology plan, obtaining the resources, implementing the plan, and finally, evaluating it.
Access is the third principle. Connectivity, ubiquitousness, interconnectivity, and equitable distribution are all important. For example, in 2000, the urban ratio of computers to students was 16 to 1, versus 7 to 1 in rural areas.

Integration is the fourth. Jack Mara, Associate Superintendent for the Maine Schools Administrative District, said that “administrators are the gatekeepers of everything,” and technology can never be fully integrated without their support, but teacher enthusiasm is a runner-up. In order to develop enthusiasm, teachers need training, incentives for participating, public recognition, and support in their schools, both technical and moral.

The fifth principle is Assessment and Evaluation. The general consensus is that technology use does better student performance on standardized tests. However, the implications for new forms of assessment are where the focus should be. Technology allows teachers to archive student’s work through electronic portfolios, chart student progress, get instant feedback, etc.

Support is the sixth. Support goes a long way toward generating teacher enthusiasm. Fortunately, our school has two state-funded positions that provide one person to ensure that the hardware works smoothly and another person offering in-house training and guidance so that we can breathe life into the curriculum through technology.

The seventh principle is Training. According to the U.S. Department of Education, schools should use 30% of their technology budgets for teacher training. The reality is that it’s more likely just a third of that. The focus of the training should be on technology integration. Basic skills are essential but most teachers work on their own time to develop these.

The eighth principle is Community Relationships. Many grants require partnerships with local businesses. Also, experts in the community can be invaluable to schools. Establishing schools as Community Access Centers allows those with no access to computers their only link to a networked society. Our school offers this program and it’s exciting to see parents get excited when navigating the Web. This experience will translate into future support for plans to expand technology integration in our school.

The ninth and final principle is Ethical Issues. Following legislative edicts related to intellectual property rights, accessibility issues, or confidentiality related to student records are all part of this. Establishing acceptable use of the Internet by students should also involve teaching them Netiquette.

I’ll end this audioblog by urging you to look at the Maryville Middle School in Tennessee. This is one of the success stories on the Knowledge Loom site. In this model school, where the ratio of students to computers is less than 4 to 1, learning is active. Students identify real-life problems and apply the STARS method to examine them. STARS stands for Students Thinking, Analyzing, Researching, and Solving. In addition, teachers, students, and the community all take part in the learning. In my opinion, Maryville Middle School meets all of the nine leadership principles for educational technology. Let’s get busy creating Maryvilles in Virginia!