Integrating technology
"This web site is dedicated to the idea that information will be the raw material that drives the 21st century, and that today's students should be learning to BUILD with information." ~David Warlick
(The common problem of being "lost in the web" is easily solved by a "trick" many people don't seem to know: if you right click on a link, another copy of your browser can be opened with the link and you won't lose your main page. You can have multiple copies of your browser open without any problems.)
| What does "integrating technology" mean? | Why should we "integrate technology"? | How does one "integrate technology" into the classroom? |
| Pencils are a tool in the classroom; students have to be taught about the use of such a tool, but at some
point, pencils are ignored as a subject. They're integrated into the
curriculum.
The same should be true of technology. Beyond a basic learning curve, technology should be just another tool in our educational arsenal. According to investigators, teachers move through predictable stages of technology use. The first stage is entry, of course, in which teachers learn how to use technology. Second is adoption. Teachers begin to adopt the use of technology in their classrooms with their students rather than simply for their students. The third stage is known as adaptation. At this point, teachers are adapting their current curriculum to truly incorporate technology so that students can create new meanings. This is, I think, where most of us are at this point. But then even more exciting things begin to happen! It is at that point when teachers begin to confront deeply held beliefs about education and appropriate technology as an integral part of education. The last stage, innovation, means teachers re-think both how and why they do what they do and free students to learn in new ways. Students must start with a need to know, and they must be able to pose essential questions about it. At some point, they must begin to evaluate and synthesize the information they're getting. That will lead to new understanding, and a new starting point.
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Lots of new brain
research and old-fashioned common sense tells us that people have
different ways of learning. That's why a teacher lecturing often uses
handouts and the chalkboard right along with the lecture. From
the days of Dewey and even before that, we've always known that children
learn best by DOING. But there aren't many ways of "doing" in a
traditional classroom.
Using the Internet and other tools, teachers begin not using technology simply to support traditional teaching practices. Teachers begin to make the learning environment more student centered and transform content-related goals into problems for students to investigate. In this day and age of high-stakes testing, it's tempting to depend on the didactic methods of the traditional classroom. But guess what! Research proves that traditional teaching geared toward true/false, multiple choice, short answer testing doesn't provide the best results! Project-based engaged learning, also known as constructivist, proves to be the most effective and long-lasting method for getting positive results even on standardized tests! |
FINDING LESSONS PLANS (by
grade level, content, topic, standards)
USING SEARCH ENGINES WELL
RESOURCES FOR ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION
HOT TOPIC (media literacy)
CREATING ON THE NET (e.g., Webquests, quizzes, games, web pages)
HELP FOR YOU! (utilities)
READY REFERENCE SHELVES
AND, HEY, WE ALL DESERVE A LITTLE FUN!
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