Reflection #7: Education Technology Philosophy (Final Draft)

The Digital Age is here.  From the Internet to smart phones, and blogs to podcasts, all generations are taking advantage of these technological tools; there is no escaping it.  Our young people from the Net Generation, however, don’t want to escape and seem to thrive on these discoveries much more than any other generation and so have been tagged ‘Digital Natives’.  Though our children and students speak the “digital” language and seem to have no trouble incorporating new technology into their daily repertoire/routine, they probably lack the critical knowledge and wisdom they need to utilize this technology to its fullest potential.  And so it is my responsibility as a future teacher to fill this gap by empowering students with the critical knowledge and wisdom they lack.

It is essential to fill this gap in students, but in order to do so I need to inspire and motivate them to be critical thinkers.  In my classroom I will incorporate concepts from the Reconstructivism school of thought where I will encourage and engage my students to get involved in our community, nation, and world.  This will enable them to practice and become familiar with real world situations and problems where they will apply new concepts, as well as, familiar concepts from the past.  Connecting via a computer, video camera, and microphone with a similar math class in a different country would provide inspiration in a very real and tangible way.  The Internet has become an integral part of our lives, and having a class web page is a must.  Classroom lessons, homework assignments, cool links, and questions from my students could all be found on a class web site. Students will be introduced to Blogs and Podcasts, utilize these e-technology tools and more fully understand their potential.  However, with class time limited and certain curriculum mandated, real world projects and/or applications involving technology can prove difficult and so the Realism school of thought rears its head.  It will prove difficult to not fall back on the habits of the past.  Standing up at the front of the class, teaching the next math concept from the book, assigning problems out of the book, and taking a test at the end of the chapter might meet the most basic criteria of education, but would severely disadvantage the students in this digital age.  I will challenge myself to erase these old schools of thought and step outside this comfort zone in my classroom.  This will broaden my students' knowledge as well as my own and put us all in a place for optimal advancement. This leads me into the school of thought which I relate to the most which is Pragmatism.

I believe education is life. I believe we are always learning and enriching our knowledge about the world around us, and we cannot do this alone. We must collaborate with each other, mold our beliefs, problem solve, and improve each and every day as educators and students. I believe this school of thought allows the limits we have put on our education to fade. It allows me to teach in a variety of ways, utilizing a variety of different tools and mediums. It is necessary to change up my teaching styles and methods and think outside the box in order to keep my students engaged and looking at problems from multiple angles. We will solve math problems which we can relate to, learn cool math tricks, engage with others outside the classroom walls, and incorporate e-technology tools and applications to enhance our everyday learning skills and knowledge.  Technology can prove to be more than just a tool we use to complete an assignment and our use of it can grow beyond the minimal usages we initially learned on our own. I want to learn and teach the new technology’s full capabilities and prove that it can empower us, makes us smarter, more efficient and effective. In this way education will begin to fill the gap between a basic utilization of technology and the ability to exploit it to the fullest extent.

Reflection #6

The article ‘A Teaching with TechnologyPodcasting’ really resonated with me.  Our students and especially teachers need to be careful when it comes to accessing, acquiring, and utilizing all the various types of technology out there, like podcasting.  Like Ashley Deal mentions, we shouldn’t use “technology for the sake of technology.”  If we do this, we’re just going to muddy the waters and lose sight of what is truly important:  the students’ education and learning.  The last thing I want to do is create a blog for the sake of creating a blog, or create a wiki for the sake of creating a wiki, or create a podcast for the sake of creating a podcast.  In the classroom, I think these internet technologies can be beneficial and have the potential to change up the sometimes mundane classroom routine but only when used for the purpose of enhancing the students’ learning experience to reach their educational goals.  The quality of the students’ education should not be sacrificed or replaced by the enticement of intriguing technology.

As Deal implies, college is not just a place to learn guided classwork, but also a place to learn prioritization, organizational skills, discipline, personal responsibility, and how to communicate and engage with one another.  All these fundamentals of life prepare us for the workplace, establish a strong work ethic, and promote a culture of accountability in one’s self.  If university students are not attending classes because they can just listen to their professor’s podcasts, then these life fundamentals might not mature and our students’ lives might be hindered greatly because of it.  We must proceed with caution.

I can see how podcasts as a supplement to teaching would be beneficial.  I like the idea of a flipped classroom and can see how a podcast could help capture some initial concepts of various math lessons.  The students could listen to the podcasts at home the night before and come to class familiar with the new lesson material.  The students would benefit by having a jump start on the next day’s lesson, they could come to class prepared with ideas and questions about the next lesson, and there would be more class time to explore new ideas, concepts, or to work additional problems.

Technology, like podcasting, can make a teacher’s life both harder and easier.  Setting up and recording each podcast is time consuming and tedious.  However, a great benefit is that once your lessons, supplemental material, or activities are recorded, they could be available to be used and reused for many years to come.  My fear is that technology can also make us lazy.  As teachers we must not become lazy, we must continue to reassess our prior “reusable” podcasts and make updates when needed.