Sunday, June 22, 2014

Elements of Educational Technology

            I chose to focus on the significance of the terms facilitating, performance and creating in my Elements of Educational Technology paper primarily because of their breadth in describing how educational technology should be employed and evaluated to ensure it’s having the greatest impact possible on students and teachers.   Narrowing the list of thirteen terms down to three was quite difficult, but I feel that facilitating, performance and creating zero-in on educational technology’s most essential roles in contemporary education, as well as provide guidance for how its users can and should justify its use.   Below is a summary of my thoughts on these terms. 

I. Facilitating
            Much like the national trend described in Educational Technology: A Definition With Commentary, my approach to teaching has shifted dramatically in the last few years: I’ve slowly been transitioning away from the role of content-deliverer to that of learning-facilitator.  It is perhaps the most significant paradigm shift I’ve undergone in my twelve years of teaching science, but it’s something I’ve embraced wholeheartedly because of the profound impact it has had on both student accountability and depth of understanding.  Shifting the onus of learning onto the students by requiring them to analyze the data, make the connections, build the models, draw the conclusions and plan their own laboratory investigations has convinced me that I’m finally now teaching them to think and act like scientists.  I already leverage technology in a number of ways to achieve this goal, and can’t wait to learn more about how current and emerging technologies can help make my transition to learning-facilitator more successful.  For me, this aspect of the reading was reinforcement that I’m on the right path.
           
II. Performance
            The insistence by the AECT that educational technology should “improve performance” in order to justify its use served as a reminder to me that incorporating technology into my classroom does not necessarily raise student achievement levels if I am merely using it to do the same thing I’ve always done, only in a “shinier” way.    Instead, I should be asking the questions: What steps can I take to ensure that this new technology is improving the depth, scope or efficiency of learning for my students over what I have done previously?  How can I use technology to provide formative and summative data previously not available to me to respond more effectively to students’ needs and to improve my performance as an instructor?

III. Create
            Lastly, I focused on “create” because it highlights the skills I need to build in order to create authentic, robust and effective learning environments for my students as I continue to transition to the role of learning-facilitator.  Both the reading and a recently designed unit on chemical energy has led me to the same conclusion: A significant paradigm shift has occurred not just in how students will be learning in the future, but also in the skill set their teachers must possess.  21st Century educators must also master elements of design and engineering in order to create the educational ecosystems in which students will be learning.  No small task, indeed!

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