Question: Lifelong learning is not just a teacher preference; it is also a requirement for maintaining state certification. Technology literacy courses and workshops are some of the most popular learning experiences for certificate extension and renewal. Do you believe that taking additional courses in technology literacy is an important as those for your content or discipline? Is too much emphasis being placed on developing and maintaining technology competency? Defend your view.
In any type of professional development a balance of continuing education topics is preferable. Taking additional courses in technology literacy may be a desirable option for many educators. There may be some who do not feel they need this quite as much. An educator like me may not need to take additional courses in technology literacy because we make it part of our teaching practice to keep up to date on our own. I often view YouTube videos or online tutorials to learn about new technology developments. Technology is a big part of what I teach, so I cannot wait for course to be offered most of the time. For other teachers, they may focus more on their specific content area for most of their personal research. For them, additional technology literacy classes would be a good choice. And, of course, sometimes there are new developments that everyone needs additional instruction in to become more familiar.
In my experience, I do not believe enough emphasis is being placed on maintaining technology competencies. While I was reading about how the Common Core Standards require technology to be used as part of the curriculum, I can say that I do not see these levels of implementation happening. The wording allows educators to get away with relying on one method of presentation over another, and of course, most choose what they are most familiar with such as reports written on paper. As far as maintaining state certification, I know as part of the education program at USM teachers are required to pass the BTLE however, there are no requirements on taking additional technology courses to renew a teaching license. I think the ideas presented in the chapter would be great, if they were happening. Personally, I have not seen them. Another problem that I notice is that what most educators and administrators consider technology integration is not in fact true integration. In Technology Integration and Foundations for Effective Leadership (required text for IT 709), there is a discussion in the first chapter of what is NOT technology integration. However, to many educators this is the only integration there is. Using the computer for administrative tasks, or to create a worksheet, using a SmartBoard as a screen for a PowerPoint presentation are sometimes what educators think of as integration. I think this demonstrates a need for more emphasis being placed in developing and maintaining competencies in these areas.
Wang, S. (2013). Technology integration and foundations for effective leadership. IGI Global.
Chapter Two, Question Three
Question: You have learned about a variety of technologies useful to support learning in this chapter. With which one of these are you most comfortable? Which are most useful in helping to prepare 21st century learners? Describe the technology and its potential applications in the grade level or content area you wish to teach and demonstrate why it is most appealing to you.
I feel comfortable with and have used many of the different technologies mentioned in this chapter. However, there are not many that I personally use in teaching because I am not a regular classroom teacher, therefore I do not use assessment instruments or remediation type technologies. The types of technologies that I think are most useful to 21st century learners are those that the chapter identified as fostering creativity. The technologies that foster creativity are those that allow students to show a deeper understanding of the concepts they have learned. For example, a student who can use a program like GoAnimate to illustrate the steps in a process or create a scenario based on a new concept learned is showing mastery of what they have learned. Anytime the student is required to synthesize the knowledge into a new product, they show what they have truly learned. This category is most like what they will experience in the real world. Employees do not have to answer multiple choice questions in their jobs, but they do have to create new products based on whatever they have been hired to do. In my content area, I teach students how to use different types of media to conduct research. I use technologies such as this for them to show the results of their research projects. I try to allow them to be creative in how they showcase this work. They might create a video, a presentation or an animation. I like allowing students to be creative in this way because I remember how much I enjoyed these types of projects in school, and I see a lack of this type of instruction in the typical classroom.
Chapter Three, Question One
Question- Instructional planning is a skill every educator at every grade level must master. To integrate technology into instruction, a logical, sequential approach is needed to help teachers to clarify which technologies are most useful and at what points they should be included in the process. Discuss Design-Plan-Act (DPA) system – what it is, how the three distinct planning components of DPA differ, and why it is helpful to use a system approach to integrate technology?
The Design Plan Act system is a very simplistic way of remembering the most basic steps in the process of instructional design with integrated technology.
The design phase is the point at which the instructional designer (ID) fleshes out the overall plan for the unit. This design will include an idea of what the content will be and the sequence in which the content will be presented. This is not a very specific plan yet. It could be thought of like a storyboard.
The plan phase is the step in which the ID gets very specific and plans each daily lesson for the entire unit. Lesson plans are created at this point. The objectives and standards are assigned to specific days and the plans to teach them are written.
The act phase requires the creation of a daily action plan. The text suggests that they ID comes up with a very specific step-by-step action plan for each day. However, this step seems somewhat redundant in my experience. The lesson plan generally includes an action plan, and the text even states that sometimes these two steps are combined in that way.
As an educator, this system alone is not helpful to me. I do this already without even thinking about it. This plan does not include any steps for evaluation, creation of instructional materials or revision of instruction. I know that is part of the DID plan that follows, but overall I don’t feel this plan really offers a systematic way to integrate technology.
Using a systematic approach is very important though. My first semester in this program, I attempted to design an online course without a lot of planning up front. I won’t say it was a disaster; the final product was good. However, I had to do and redo so much work because I was not following a plan in my design. I think this plan would be very misleading for someone new to instructional planning if it were the only thing they had to use. It is not complete enough to create a good plan.