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!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home