"Less about the grade, more about the learning."

From the beginning, I could tell that the "Power On Texas" was out to change the minds of even the most stubborn skeptics about implementing technology in the classroom. Video one began with a battlecry that all advocates of technology should add to their repertoire:

"Using technology is about connecting students to the world that they live in today and preparing them for the world they will work in tomorrow."

Truly, how can we as educators continue to gripe about how our students are disinterested, disengaged, and unmotivated in our classrooms if we insist to continue on with an ancient teaching model? Many classrooms today are indistinguishable from classrooms of the 1800s, while the world outside of the classroom's walls is unrecognizable for all the leaps and bounds we have made thanks to technology. It's time to at least meet our students halfway; to bust down a few walls between the classroom and the real world, and that is what technology can help us to achieve as educators.

The most common complaint amongst teachers when it comes to technology is that their schools simply cannot afford all of the shiny new tools that other schools have. I'll save everyone my usual point about how more and more government grants and donations from others are making it more likely for schools to gain technological tools, and point out another interesting fact made within one of our videos. In one school, they could not afford 1 to 1 computing. Instead, only four computers were allowed in each classroom. Within this limitation, however, teachers found an opportunity for their students to learn how to collaborate with one another. Students learned how to share their computers, and each student was assigned a role in a group: recorder, researcher, navigator, etc. As later videos pointed out, it is becoming more important than ever for our students to learn how to work together, and more and more research points to how students can learn substantially more if they are allowed to work together. Realistically, we will never be able to have an ideal situation in our classrooms, especially when it comes to technology. We will always have to endure limitations and make concessions in our classrooms, but if we can learn how to turn limitations into opportunities, we could seize more opportunities to help our students learn more than ever before.

Another common excuse among teachers when it comes to implementing new technology in their classrooms is that they simply do not have the time or resources necessary to learn how to effectively use new technological tools. "Power On Texas" did an excellent job of showing how implementing weekly workshops and assistance can be incredibly effective in helping teachers become more comfortable with technology. As one educator pointed out, "comfort must come before creativity." With these programs in place (i.e. Tech Tuesday), teachers were allowed to collaborate with one another, ask questions, and create lessons so that they were comfortable with technology, and from there their creativity flowed and made for incredible lessons. At the heart of excuses is usually fear. As an educator in one video stated, many teachers are not just afraid the technology won't work, but rather they are afraid of losing control in their classroom once they unleash their students in the world of technology. Schools need to make it clear to teachers that there is nothing to fear when it comes to using technology in their classrooms. Truly, it will take some time to adjust and find what works for them, but ultimately the benefits far outweigh the costs.

Finally, many teachers will cry for proof before they go about the business of reshaping their comfortable, useful lesson plans to integrate technology. For these doubters, the "Power On Texas" videos provided ample evidence that technology works if we know how to use it. With technology, teachers can address multiple intelligences on a daily basis. As one educator stated, "kids that didn't have any interest in paper and pencil tasks just fly with technology." With technology, students can get up and move, listen, watch, type, play, and interact without a teacher having to put on a dog-and-pony show at the front of the room. Through making public service announcements, students have to collaborate, rehearse, act, repeat, and edit, and through their videos they are teaching others a specific concept; and as we all know, teaching someone else is the best way to learn something. With more advanced technological tools such as DyKnow and Mimeo, students can more easily collaborate not just with each other, but also with the teacher in real time, whether they are in the same room or not. DyKnow also allows teachers to keep a closer eye on students without constantly standing over their shoulders.

If all this wasn't enough, these videos also contained dozens of testimonials from real teachers about how technology has helped their students and themselves. Since implementing technology and project-based learning, these teachers have noticed remarkable decreases in discipline problems, and significant increases in attendance, independence, engagement, and motivation in their students. They realize that there is no magic bullet that will solve all of these problems for all students. No matter what we do, there will be some resistant students, but these educators have seen time and time again that implementing more technology can make the difference between a passive learner and an active, excited, and motivated learner, and isn't that what we all want?

Integrating Technology: A "Risky" Business?

In an article entitled "What makes technology 'risky'?: An exploration of teachers' perceived risk in the context of technology integration", Sarah K. Howard takes a closer look at different perspectives on integrating technology in the classroom. Howard interviewed and closely examined roughly 90 participants from schools all over the U.S. and Australia. What Howard found was that "teachers perceived similar risks when considering technology integration, but that these risk perceptions varied in intensity depending on the teachers' beliefs regarding technology's role in teaching and their conception of quality teaching." Basically, Howard came across two different mindsets: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and "I'll try anything if you tell me it works." Howard is suggesting that in order to successfully implement technology in classrooms, schools need to address the needs and worries of both the more reluctant teachers AND the teachers that are up for anything. Even the more open teachers have their doubts and recognize the risks involved with integrating technology in the classroom, and these doubts must be addressed and alleviated if we can ever hope to have more technologically advanced classrooms.

I found this article interesting because it raised some valid points. It began by listing the most common risks that teachers identified as possible threats to student learning. Even the most gung-ho technology advocates voiced some of the same concerns:

-how technology supports notions of effective and quality teaching

-loss of classroom control

-time: lost instruction time and lesson preparation time

-fulfilling cultural expectations

Now, as enlightened students and future educators of a new age, we might be quick to jump down the throats of these pessimistic technology naysayers, but let's take a closer look at these concerns. Truly, it's not so unusual to wonder how various technological tools could support quality teachers if we take into consideration that not all instructors (in fact, very few probably) have been shown how to use many tools like we have. Without being exposed to tools like blogs, googledocs, and explicitly shown how to use them, some teachers might be wondering what all the fuss is about. Another big concern is loss of instruction time, and a commitment to more preparation time in order to integrate technology. Some of us might scoff at teachers who make such complaints, but the truth of the matter is that integrating technology really does require some time commitment, especially in the beginning and even more so if one isn't particularly tech-savvy. 

As excited as we may be about putting the ideas we've learned in this class into practice, we have to remember that it will require making some sacrifices and taking some risks. What matters, though, is how we choose to tackle these obstacles. In this article, two participants were quoted on their beliefs about implementing technology in their classrooms:

Danielle: "I would like to implement anything [technology] that is gong to work to help these kids learn. If someone came up with a new something and said, this is the best thing ever, I'd say, let me try it. All the help I can get."

We'd all like to be more like Danielle. She's up for anything and everything when it comes to technology in the classroom because she doesn't see new tools as something more to learn or cram into her crazy schedule; she sees them as potentially helpful, and she's open to all the help she can get. Some things will work and others won't, but we'll never know until we try. Unfortunately, not everyone is as optimistic or as patient as Danielle. Take Judith for example:

Judith: "If there was more time in the course, maybe I would do something like that [use graphing software], but there isn't. It's tough to get through the course as is, so I don't see the time taken up by that as being a benefit."

Now, before we jump down Judith's throat, let's take a minute to remember where she's coming from. As much as we may hate to see it, it's not so uncommon to see a teacher simply throw their hands up and and dig in their heels when they're faced with yet another request on their time and patience. Truly, there are a lot of expectations thrust upon teachers today, perhaps more than ever. It is for this reason that administrators and policy makers need to adjust their radar a little bit.

This is what Howard was really getting at. The truth is, when it comes to the teachers we have out there today, the Judiths far outnumber the Danielles. We can tell them until we're blue in the face "Technology is great! You should try it!" But unless we can really prove it, and take the time to show the Judiths out there how easy it is to implement technology, we're not going to get very far. We need to let teachers know that we understand where they're coming from, that we recognize all of the worries and risks that they're facing, but that there are hundreds of tools out there that can ultimately make their teaching more effective and their time better-spent. Truthfully, if technology is used well, all of those risks that we identified earlier can be turned on their heads. Technology can enhance quality instruction, promote better classroom control, make the most of instruction time, and help surpass cultural expectations. The bottom line is, we can't just tell teachers these things; we have to SHOW them.


Howard, Sarah. ""What makes technology 'risky'?: An exploration of teachers' perceived risk in the context of technology integration." Academia.edu. 2010. 19 Feb 2010.

http://uow.academia.edu/SarahHoward/Papers/157658/What_Makes_Technology_Risky_An_Exploration_of_Teachers_Perceived_Risk_in_the_Context_of_Technology_Integration

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn."

After watching all of the videos and reading the articles this week, I can say that I've found a lot of different ways to integrate technology in classrooms, but I can't honestly say that I know how in the world I'm going to do it when it's my turn! I love all of the ideas, but who really knows what kinds of tools we will (or will not) have available once we get going in our own classrooms? Thankfully, I have found a few ideas that I think I can apply no matter what is in my classroom. What I've learned this week is that integrating technology in the classroom isn't just about bringing in the latest and greatest tools to play around with, it's really more about finding out what our students need to be able to do in the future, and then finding the best methods and tools we can to help them learn those skills.

Through the technology in the classroom videos, I found many great ideas that seem fairly easy to implement in my classroom. One of my favorites was the idea of setting up a classroom blog. One of the teachers stated "everyone speaks up in my blogs, even the shy ones." Setting up discussion boards is now easier than ever, and it's a great way to get students more involved in class discussions. I was always a student who felt much more comfortable writing what I felt than I did speaking about how I felt. How many students are too afraid to speak up in class? How many students just don't get a chance to speak out because other students prefer to hear the sound of their own voice? How many times do we as teachers get so caught up in what we're saying that we forget to check in on our students to make sure that everyone is keeping up with us, and not just the few in the front row nodding their heads? All of these problems could potentially be solved by setting up class discussion boards. These are different from the traditional written responses in many ways. Discussion boards allow students to communicate with each other, and not just with the teacher. As one teacher stated in one of our videos, "technology creates opportunities for teachers to reach students, for students to reach each other." Isn't one of the main goals of 21st Century education to help students learn how to cooperate and communicate effectively with their community? Formal papers provide them formal writing practice, but blogs and discussion boards can provide them with opportunities to relax and have fun with writing, and help them get used to communicating as a community where everyone has a time and a place to speak their piece. Every education textbook I've come across rants that our students need more writing practice in school, and I can honestly say that I've written more in this class through discussion boards and blogs than I have in many other classrooms. It's not nearly as painful, but I'm still writing, I'm still finding my voice, and I'm still thinking critically.  Aren't those all things that we want for our students? Something as simple as setting up a discussion board can accomplish so much; just imagine what the more sophisticated technology tools can help us achieve?

One great example of sophisticated technology helping students was obvious in the teacher video focused on students with reading disabilities. These programs were highly successful, as the students' testimonials and smiling faces proved, and these technological tools helped students in more ways than one. Some teachers may fear that programs such as these may lessen the need for their presence as learning specialists in schools, but I would have to disagree. These new tools are no replacement for a living, breathing teacher, but they do help the students to develop "independence and confidence." Tools like these can teach our students the an important life lesson: everyone needs help sometimes, but they can also achieve more than they ever may have expected all on their own. Technology isn't always about finding answers the easy way, or taking short-cuts. If used correctly, various kinds of technology can be integrated into the classroom in such a way that students will learn bigger life-lessons that can help them immensely in their futures. They're not just learning reading strategies, they're learning how to be more independent. Another teacher pointed out that when students create a video for class, they're not just making a video, they're "synthesizing what they know into something new, working with other people, and effectively communicating it with someone else." Perhaps these ideas seem idealistic. Many schools cannot afford this pricey technology, but does that mean that they never will?

Some of the ideas presented in our articles and videos this week may seem idealistic and out of the question. Sure, maybe some schools will never have a laptop for every student. Surely, we may never have 100% of our students with internet access at home, but does that mean we should stop trying to look for ways to make these ideas work? I might just be a hopeless optimist, but I can't help but think that even the biggest, most outrageous ideas might be possible in the future. Maybe we won't all be able to play with the latest and greatest technological tools, but we've found evidence that we can help our students better prepare for their futures in the 21st Century in all kinds of ways; whether they're using spellcheck or speaking to students in a live-chat on the other side of the world. All that matters is that we stay focused on helping our students acquire the skills and knowledge that they need to be successful in the future. Some ideas seem out of the question now, but who knows where we'll be 15 or even 10 years from now? Imagine what educators were saying was impossible 30 years ago. Imagine what they would say if they watched the teacher videos that we did this week. Maybe some ideas sound idealistic and outrageous now, but who's to say that today's idealistic and outrageous isn't tomorrow's standard?

All of this new technology probably will change my role as a teacher in the coming years in a big way. I can't say that I completely buy into the idea that all education will take place online in the future, but I can say that I completely believe and accept the fact that the role of teacher will be changing. As I mentioned earlier, many technological tools help students to become more independent and confident, thus I may not be as much of a lecturer and demonstrator as I might be a facilitator and assistant. This, frankly, is fine with me. It's not that I want to work less. In fact, I believe that in order to integrate technology effectively in the classroom, I might have to work even harder, just in a different way. I'll have to work at learning what new technology is out there, and work at coming up with unique and innovative lessons and assignments that foster creativity and independence rather than obedience and adherence to the status quo. There's an old saying: "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime." The way I see it, in years past we've been giving our students a fish. We've been throwing information at them so that they could memorize it, pass a standardized test, get their diploma and move on. What technology is doing is helping us to better teach our students "how to fish." We're not just handing over information anymore, we're asking our students to go find it for themselves and not just memorize it, but do something with it. We're not holding their hands so much anymore, we're asking them to trust themselves and find their own sense of independence. That's the kind of future I see in the world of education, and I'm all for it. My role as a teacher will undoubtedly change, but as long as I can stay focused on helping my students learn skills that will help them grow in the future, I'm willing to change too.