Category: Masters Work (Page 5 of 9)

Below are short summary notes of each reading along with my reflection on some of the major topics, why they are important, and how it affects my personal perspective and approach to teaching .

What

Weller, M. (2018, August). Twenty Years of Edtech. EDUCAUSE Review, 53(4). Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/7/twenty-years-of-edtech

• EdTech is a fast changing field
• Over the last 20 years, here are the most popular edtech topics:
  • Wikis – a jointly editable website
  • E-Learning (primarily post-secondary focused)
  • Learning Objects
  • Standards for E-Learning platforms
  • Open Educational Resources (OER’s)
  • Blogs
  • LMS (Learning Management Systems)
  • Videos (e.g. Youtube, Vimeo, etc.)
  • Web 2.0
  • Virtual Worlds
  • E-Portfolios
  • Twitter and Social Media
  • Connectivism
  • Personal Learning Environments (PLE’s)
  • Massive Open Online Communities (MOOC’s)
  • Open Textbooks
  • Learning Analytics
  • Digital Badges
  • Return of Artificial Intelligence
  • Blockchain

Weller notes that technologies in education tend to come back around. For example, Learning Objects were the first step to making teaching content reusable; and the ideas that were generated from learning about them lead to the creation of Open Educational Resources (OER’s). He states the importance of anyone working in the field of educational technology to understand the history in order to use and improve ideas to move forward.

Zawacki-Richter, O., & Naidu, S. (2016). Mapping research trends from 35 years of publications in Distance Education. Distance Education, 37(3), 245–269. http://ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/login?url=https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2016.1185079

This article maps out trends in education by analyzing the titles and abstracts of research papers on the topic of distance education over a 34 year time period (1980-2014) in five year intervals. So much has changed over the last decade in educational technology, yet not much is documented or remembered as things change and warp so fast. The trends are dictating that OER’s and MOOCs are an evolving part of the distance education field.

Peter, S., & Deimann, M. (2013). On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction. Open Praxis, 5(1), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.5.1.23

Peter and Deimann review the history of openness in education from the middle ages to the present. In the middle ages, open education began with student universities and public lectures.  Then moving on to coffee houses, open universities, and more recently MIT OWC, MOOC’s, and Coursera. There is much to be learned from the history of open education in order to continually develop the current space of open education.

So What

As discussed in our class meeting, one of the comments in Wellers article seem to be counter intuitive – things have changed massively, yet nothing has changed. Through conversation we came to the agreement that the structure of education is still the same, but the ways in which we interact and engage students is changing.  For example, new technology is always being  introduced into classrooms and they are often engaging students in a different way, however, it hasn’t changed education as a whole. And that the technology revolution is more about managing the experience of education, not changing the education system as a whole.

One of the important tidbits of information that came out of these articles was the fact that learning about the history of open education is important in order to figure out what has been done before and how to implement that  in the future. As we looked through the list of past open education resources, things have tended to repeat themselves. So the question for new innovations in educational technology is to develop sustainability in open communities. There are often so many new ‘toys’ or applications that come and go. But how can we ensure that they are going to be effective and sustainable long term?

Another topic that came out of the class discussion was how to open source education and research. How/why would researchers spend time on a project if they weren’t getting compensated in some way. So in turn, what company is going to provide resources free of charge from people who are providing them free of charge?! It is hard to get people to do work and then give it away for ‘free’.

Now What

Here are some questions that are going to help guide me in my technology implementation:

• What open education resources do I use and take advantage of?
• What open education resources do I provide for staff and/or students?
• How can I choose open educational resources that will sustain? Are there indicators based on historical research?

What issues were the most interesting for you and why?

It is clear across all articles in this book, that knowledge has not increased at the same rate as technology innovation has. New technology applications and platforms are being introduced faster that teachers and students have time to experiment with and dabble in. The important thing that Information Technology leaders in schools need to remember, is that it is not the quantity of technology or even the usage of current technology, but how it is helping the learners in the space. Just because a platform or software is new, doesn’t mean that it is the best thing to support students. There is no perfect delivery system, it depends on the individual what is going to work best.

“good usage is the usage that matches instruction and gets the best outcomes for students”

Something that really stuck out to me from one of the chapters was the idea that just because students are exposed to a lot of technology at home, we should not assume that because they are competent technology users. I have seen this first hand as a primary teacher. Students self-report extended technology access and programming at home. This usually entitles video games and YouTube. However, these applications do not help students develop skills to use technology appropriately. For the most part, they do not know how to type, do not know how to search information, use technology to make life easier, or what applications are outside of the gaming ones they are always on.

One thing that my district is quite interested in right now is assessment. As our curriculum in BC has changed, our assessment practices need to change as well. With the increase in technology, assessing the use of technology and using technology to assess has revolutionized assessment. As mentioned by one of the groups, assessment needs to be multifaceted. In our district, we have developed an assessment visual that shows the different things you need to consider when developing your assessments – insure its clear and intentional, timely and ongoing, inclusive, communicates student learning, and is a shared responsibility between student, teachers, and family.

Another aspect of technology that I found interesting was the use of game simulation to help solve real world problems. Students are building engagement through the use of this new approach and not only developing technology skills but also problem solving and collaboration skills. It is something very interesting in theory but something else in practice I think. I was in one of our Grade 6/7 classes last week doing coverage and I decided to bring in something fun. I decided to have the students do a Breakout EDU game. I made quite a few assumptions before bringing it into the class – such as, they had knowledge of breakout games and that they had strong problem solving and persistence. I was quickly shown otherwise. Students were quickly frustrated when the instructions did not tell them exactly what to do. And they did very little to move closer to the answer. I had to start providing hints in order to get them re-engaged and successful. For next time, I will ensure I start with an easier activity and maybe do one as a whole group before having them engage in small group work.

Technology is an interesting concept in elementary classrooms. There are so many opportunities to provide students in order to develop curricular and core competencies, however, it’s hard to know what is best.

Which issues have implications for you in your own personal situation (both in your current position and in your current research topic for your MEd project.?

I am coming to understand this more and more. I originally thought of my job as constantly bringing in new things to staff to explore. But that can be extremely overwhelming, especially for those staff members that are already uncomfortable with technology and are hesitant to change their ways. I am coming to the realization that instead, it is important that teachers feel that they have input, time to practice, and support from other teachers and admin in the building. Trevor and I’s chapter was all about Educational Leadership in the field of IT. The main message was about how to create the space for optimal learning and growing and how to foster that as a leader within a school staff.

This means spending time having discussions as staff about our pedagogy and values around technology in education. Until you do that, as a leader, you will not have a solid understanding of where the staff are coming from and will not be able to choose new technology initiatives that fulfill the schools needs, wants, and goals.

It’s also important as a leader, to understand what the possible factors for disruption there are, in order to mitigate as many as we can. There can be a lack of time given to staff to experiment and play with technology before bringing it into their classroom. As a result, there is a lack of experience which leads to being uncomfortable. And we all know that no teacher wants to teach from a place of discomfort. In addition, depending on what generation you grew up in – you may have more or less risk tolerance and self-help strategies when it comes to technology. Availability is a huge factor as well at schools around the world. It is a rarity that all students have access to a device. Therefore, it’s important to have some supplemental devices and activities that do not need to be completed online. And access to funds could either help or hinder this. In many schools in my districts, there are strong PAC’s which raise a lot of money to help buy and maintain technology. Whereas in other schools, that is not always the case. There is also the agendas of stakeholders to keep in mind. When  technology is introduced to a school or a district, there are usually already agendas that administrators have before presenting. It’s difficult to get buy-in from teachers when it is an initiative that is being done to them and for them instead of with/alongside them.

One thing that I really liked from the K-12 Tech Usage Report linked below, was the Batavia district strategy in regards to technology integration. It consists of 3 levels:

• • Core materials that get widespread use
  • Supplemental materials for remediation or enrichment
  • Materials that might just meet an individual school/student/teacher need *these are few and far between and often transition into the second section

This provides a good way to categorize technology apps and usage with staff in a way that is clear.

Something I would like to learn more about, connected to my M.Ed project:

• How to use technology to enhance assessment – especially when job sharing/have multiple teachers?
• How to use technology to share the learning that is going on in my classroom/community through digital portfolios for primary students?
• Where is the balance between technology use in classrooms and place-based learning outdoors? What skills can we develop with the use of the one over the other? Or both?
• How to harness students experience with social media/technology to share their outdoor learning experiences? (YouTube? Class Instagram? FreshGrade?)

Resources:

• Voogt, G. Knezak, R. Christensen, & K-W, Lai (Eds.) Second Handbook of Information Technology in Primary and Secondary Education, pp. 3-12. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71054-9]

• K-12 Tech Usage Report

My context is that I am currently a grade two teacher, the Vice Principal, and the technology support teacher at my school. The school district that I am a part of strongly supports technology use in the classroom and are often pushing out different types of opportunities. With the school and PAC funds that we have access to, our school is equipped with iPads and Chromebooks and students in Grades 4-7 are strongly encouraged to invest in a personal device. We also have dropdown projectors in all classrooms and a SmartBoard in our school library. I would say, for the most part, that the technology devices and applications that we use within our school have either been suggested by the district or apps that are gaining public popularity. As I applied for this Master’s program, I was hoping that it would help me to tighten up our systems, develop a vision for our school, and a structure to more thoughtfully reflect on what and how to implement ‘new’ technology into our practice.

Through these readings, I am leading more towards the TPACK model. There seems to be more research behind the implementation and use of the model to develop and create deep learning experiences for classroom teacher and students. As an administrator, it would push me to be extremely thoughtful and intentional with what I brought to staff. I would have to think about the content knowledge, technologic knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge of all staff.

“The basis of effective teaching with technology, requiring an understanding of the representation of concepts using technologies; pedagogical techniques that use technologies in constructive ways to teach content; knowledge of what makes concepts difficult or easy to learn and how technology and help redress some of the problems that students face; knowledge of students prior knowledge and theories of epistemology; and knowledge of how technologies can be used to build on existing knowledge to develop new epistemologies or strengthen old ones” (Koehler & Mishra, 2009).

Teaching is a complicated and confusing profession and with the addition of technology, it often just becomes an add on. In the past, I have found that our school brings in technology that is new and exciting but it often sits unused because teachers don’t have an understanding of how to use it, how it will assist in developing their pedagogical understanding, and how it will help enhance content knowledge – a perfect example of that is our SmartBoard. Something that could change the way that technology is perceived and understood would be to go through the different types of knowledge need to be developed before the full introduction of a new technology or application. Providing the research, having conversations with staff about our collective understanding and vision in regards to technology, providing sessions for educators to play around an explore with the technology, and building content capacity before introducing a technology to support.

However, I think the SAMR model also has a place in the school. I think it serves as a great reminder to implement a variety of technology in the classroom. We shouldn’t be spending all of our time at the bottom with substitution and augmentation and challenge ourselves to modify and redefine the learning in classroom with technology. The reference of the SAMR model with staff, could provoke thought provoking question and reminders about what we are doing in our classroom – such as why are we using what we are using in the first place? Is it the best thing to do? Is it going to have an impact on the learning? It provides a starting point to have conversations about technology. Based on the articles given for this week’s readings, there doesn’t seem to be much research about the process of implementing the structure and many questions surrounding the efficacy of the SAMR model. In the education community, there seems to be concerns around the contextual implementation of the model, rigid structure where activities are only supposed to fall within one of the four levels, and the primary focus on product instead of process of learning (Hamilton & Rosenberg et al., 2016). Therefore, I would start by moving through the TPACK model when implementing or introducing new technology, and use the SAMR model to facilitate discussion around what we are already doing and what we can move towards.

Resources:

Hamilton, E.R., Rosenberg, J.M. & Akcaoglu, M. (2016). The Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition (SAMR) Model: a Critical Review and Suggestions for its Use. TechTrends 60(5), 433-441. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-016-0091-y

Koehler, M. & Mishra, P. (2009). What is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK)?. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 9(1), 60-70. Waynesville, NC USA: Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education.  https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/29544/.