The Barriers of Technology

So this week’s readings were interesting, but yet they seem to resonate with the same thoughts from the previous chapters. These chapters however do go more into depth with the issues of implementing technology into the schools, which is basically my largest concern. I guess that is my largest concern because I am witnessing it in my own district. So I get frustrated when I begin reading articles and books on how we need to push technology into the classrooms, yet fail to mention how to go about doing it so that it becomes a useful tool. It’s funny, as I read the Johnston/Cooley chapters, I could easily identify and connect the mistakes that districts make with technology with my own district. For instance, when they state, “When computers are placed in classrooms, there generally are too few computers---in many cases only one---which makes it difficult to plan and schedule meaningful computer activities based on new models of teaching and learning” (p 56). This is precisely the problem with our schools’ classrooms. One solution that the authors make is that the district can spend money on a laptop cart to help give greater access to the students as well as the faculty, which our district did. However, there are so many connectivity problems that I spend more time getting all the students logged on than on actual teaching. With forty-two minute classes the laptop cart definitely takes time away from instruction time!

I also appreciated what Johnston/Cooley had to say in regards to how computer labs “are not integral components of the teachers’ instructional strategies and tend to be curricular ‘add-ons’ disconnected from regular classroom activities” (63). Prior to our laptop arriving in the school, our only use of computers was the pc lab, which felt more like a room that we should use as opposed to technology that could help students investigate, analyze and learn through a different medium.

Lastly, Johnston/Cooley’s point on assessment truly hit home. We are no longer teaching in a world where rote memorization is the only way to learn and that multiple choice tests is the only form of assessment, instead “to evaluate what has actually been learned, it is necessary to assess actual, authentic tasks produced through student interaction and collaboration” (p 92). With the integration of technology, educators now have different avenues to assess their students, which ultimately allow the students to truly show what they have learned. Also, with more and different forms of assessment, it will be easier to judge a students knowledge, especially knowing that not all students learn of reveal what they have learned in the same fashion.
I did enjoy the Hendron article on podcasting, particularly since I was one of the teachers that helped convince my school to purchase an IPod cart. It is a fabulous piece of technology; it contains one laptop and 30 IPod classics. The unfortunate part about the cart is that we have had so many issues attempting to download to the IPods that no one uses it anymore. It is now over a year old, no one can seem to fix the software problem, and it has now simply become a large rolling paper holder.