TEACHING MODULE
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Technology Integration
How to Integrate Technology
Finding the right tools to implement in the classroom.
Handhelds Go to Class:
Teacher Josh Barron and one of his students often go through the strange-looking rite of "beaming" information to each other.
Students often become engaged learners when technology is a seamless part of their curriculum. Technology integration changes classroom dynamics, encouraging project-based learning and constructivist thought.
Think about what you are doing in the classroom with your students: What projects are they working on? What resources are they using? What tools are being used? Is technology use transparent and varied?
If your answer is 'No,' then how does technology integration begin? It begins when teachers and students use technology because it is the right tool to use. It is students using the Internet to do research. It is students creating Web sites to teach others about earthquakes and disaster readiness. It is students creating multimedia presentations and presenting them to their classmates, parents, and community.
Rural Washington Students Connect with the World:
Pupils in Kristi Rennebohm Franz's classes have used the Internet for a variety of international exchanges and collaborative projects.
Credit: Kristi Rennebohm Franz
Technology integration begins when a teacher has her students illustrate a Kindergarten alphabet book using a paint program. The students publish their work. They print out their pages and create a class book that is sent home for parents to view. Technology integration is students making slideshows using their alphabet drawings. It is the students recording their voices and saying the letters of the alphabet and the names of objects they drew.
Technology integration happens when third grade students at Joe Nightingale Elementary School select a wild animal to write about and create a clay animation of that animal. Partnering up to do Internet research promotes collaboration among students. Older children can break into groups to animate scenes from a novel. Visit Clay Animation Made Easy for examples on how to get started, from having students prepare storyboards and scripts, to creating clay figures, and finally filming and editing their animation project.
Technology integration is fourth-grade students creating slideshow presentations about the latest books they have read. In their presentations they include hyperlinks to Internet sites reviewing the books. Technology integration is fifth-grade students making movies about the Oregon Trail and westward expansion. It is the Mars Millennium Project, a national science, arts, and technology initiative for thousands of kids in community groups and K-12 classrooms imagining a community on Mars in the year 2030. See one lesson plan that shows how technology facilitates that exploration. Technology integration is using digital cameras to make movies explaining scientific principles, such as the Flight of the Painted Ladies.
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has established national technology standards for teachers. These standards have two competency skill areas: operational and integration. The standards encourage teachers to use technology for their professional and personal uses. The standards recommend that teachers access and exchange information using the Internet. Teachers who embrace technology and recognize its use can integrate it into their teaching practices. However, recognizing when and where technology fits into a lesson, project, or curriculum is really the first step. Too often, a teacher shies away from using technology because he/she doesn't know how to use certain applications or devices. When this is the case, turn to the 'expert': the student. In "Turning the Tables -- Students Teach Teachers," elementary, middle, and high school students help veteran and prospective teachers integrate technology into their lessons to enhance student learning. Technology allows for the student/teacher roles to be interchangeable. Students love to teach teachers how to use technology!
5th Grade General/Science
I need to learn more about how to integrate my technology. We have limited computer time, and enough computers in the school that I should be able to give my students enough time to be valuable, but I still can't seem to fit it into the curriculum. Where do I start? How do I take what I'm already teaching and use technology while still teaching what my school district maps out? Do I have to create it myself, (that would be very time consuming and impractical) or is there some program already in place?
Beginning to integrate technology...
Joshua -
The important thing is not what you do, but that you start. You are teaching screenagers, so you must meet them where they live. So bravo for looking for a beginning!
Here are some easy ways to get started:
1) Use web-based resources to support more kids in understanding complex concepts. I bet you will find some high quality interactive tools that will help more kids succeed with your established curriculum here:
A. http://www.iknowthat.com/com/L3?Area=Science%20Lab
B. http://www.learningscience.org/
2) To make full use of your lab time, build a simple teacher web page that you will pre-load with quality links. Use one of these tools:
A. http://poster.4teachers.org
B. http://edublogs.org
C. http://www.portaportal.com
3) Use online tools to create products that demonstrate student competency - let the technology be a true tool for assessment. Try this one out for making brochures on any topic... The "flyer" is a one pager, and so perhaps better for you:
A. http://www.mybrochuremaker.com
And of course, this goes without saying, keep coming back to Edutopia for ideas, inspiration, and help from colleagues! Cheers, .
Jim
I liked the survey so I can get more knowledge about areas of technology that I not well informed about.
Where's the Keyboarding?
The first step in any technology integration has got to be keyboarding. All the projects listed are wonderful, but have you thought about how long these projects will take if the kids don't know how to keyboard efficiently? Touch-typing (as it used to be called) is essential for students and is a life skill we can give our students at an early age.
Once students get to about 3rd or 4th grade, they should be taught keyboarding in a controlled environment by a trained instructor. This is where technology integration should start and where it can really begin. For more of my reasons, see p. 13 of http://www.iceberg.org/site/files/2006-issue3.pdf
Keyboarding Skills Are Important
Patsy Lanclos wrote two blog posts on keyboarding that are very helpful. Have a look at:
Keys to the (Online) Kingdom: The Importance of Basic Computer Skills
and
Keyboarding and Word Processing Basics: Part II
Typing....Texting
Did I miss a texting class? Many students can text faster than I will ever text, and no school offers that class.
How many of us actually type better now with computers than we ever could on a typewriter? Please don't misunderstand; I agree that keyboarding is key, but when do those skills develop and is a class the only way to develop that skill...just some thoughts!
How to integrate technology
Hi Joshua,
I think if you are trying to add technology into your classroom curriculum as an extra you are missing the key point.
The point is that technology is a teaching tool to use in everyday classroom curriculum.
Technology can cater for many learning styles because it is kinaesthetic, visual, aural as well as being musical or literacy or numeracy based, etc.
Technology can be the best tool to use for particular learning tasks. It is much more meaningful to:
1. use a webcam to see inside a volcano rather than a 2D picture or diagram.
2. take a virtual tour of a rainforest/olympic village/mangroves/etc.
3. chat live with a war veteran/author/musican
4. use a GPS to navigate around the local area and create your own map
5. create a game in a specific genre eg comic strip narrative or game rules in procedural text.
The list is endless where technology is the best tool to use for student learning outcomes.
Technology integration teaching module
Hi Joshua,
A voice from across the oceans. Good reflection of mapping technology through learning styles. Err..I'm a new kid on the bloc here but allow me to provide one additional perspective from the readings that I have done. Current research on technology integration tells us that we can begin to integrate technology into the classroom by observing the following steps, broadly (I'm sure as a teacher you already know this at the back of your mind):
1. Think of classroom teaching as a collection of activities and tasks. One may think of activities as student-initiated actions, and tasks as what the teacher has planned for the students to do. There are many types of tasks: assimilative, communicative, information-gathering, adaptive, productive (LittleJohn & Pegler, 2007; Conole 2007) to choose from. Bernie Dodge has a typology of tasks as well: journalistic tasks, retelling tasks,compliation tasks etc.
2. Choose a pedagogical approach for each activity and task, by locating the task's properties along three continuums: individually - in groups; rote - disvovery; non-reflective - to reflective. The model I just mentioned is known as the Octahedron (developed by Conole, Oliver, Dkye & Seale, 2004). A task that is very skewed towards rote instead of discovery, non-reflective instead of reflective, and individually instead of group-based reflect associative (or behaviouristic) pedagogical approach; the opposite reflects more social constructivist methods.
3. After locating the pedagogical profiles of each task, one can categorise the available and accessible technologies into group, such as, assimilative, information-handling, adaptiv, communicative, and productive. It is important to remember that technology tools are like cast on the stage in a given lesson; they can assume one or more purposes. For example, a Wiki can be a presentation tool in assimilative activities. At the same time, a wiki can be a communicative and collaborative tool in communicative and collaborative activities; a productive tool in productive activities Alot of alien terms here but googlethe authors' names to fine out more or go to ERIC.
What we have now is a lesson plan that maps activities /task to technnology tools. And yes..it is robotic but I have found these steps helpful and use it in my undergraduate class.
The tough part though, is this: the ability of the teacher (in planning the lesson) to perceive and take up the "affordances" (i.e. the relation between the features and functions of the technology and the teachers' intentions)is important to make up what a piece of technology can do to help students' learn better. I mentioned "ability" and there is a term coined by Dr Mishra called the "technological pedagogical content knowledge". His model is a leap forward in describing the skills needed by teachers in technology integration. A earlier model is called the K3P3 model of pedagogical knowledge base given by (Kolis & Dunlap, 2004). Try googling these to fnd out more.:)
Please feel free to comment. Cheers from Singapore!
Tech integration
For my math classroom, I would like to introduce and use more technology. The problem is computer access is virtually not there. We have one computer lab for 3 middle school grade levels to share and I only have my computer in the room. So where do I start?
Keyboarding
I am afraid that I that on a very different philosophy about keyboarding as tech integration... so here is my soapbox. These kids are interested in technology early, so that is when they should be exposed. Theior toys have buttons, bells and whistles that ours did not have. Some interactives for ages 3+ look like mini laptops with key pads. If they are using tech tools from an early age, students will be proficient typers regardless of relationship to the home row. The issue in not having a structured typing class in 3rd grade, but using computers as a daily tool in the classroom from pre-school and up. Chances are, preschool will not be the first exposure. My daughter can type twice as fast as I can and has never heard of a home row. Also, how many students are now or will be typing in the future on anything from a standard keyboard, to a palm or a cell. -Way too small for two hands 5 fingers. Are there homerow programs for thumbs, or key pads??? Technology is changing so rapidly that it needs to be utilized and integrated, not isolated.