“The technology itself is not transformative. It’s the school, the pedagogy that is transformative.”
- Tanya Byron
Through this quote, I do not mean to undermine the power of technology, but it’s my firm belief that technology alone can’t take us to the summit of academic achievement. However, I am a firm believer in concept and skill-enhancing technology.
When I was in middle school in the 80’s in India, watching science videos on VHS was quite a luxury. I used to scramble for a front row seat. Also, I have used a magnifying lens to read vernier calipers, and I have replotted umpteen graphs on grid paper in my senior Physics class. It was frustrating at times, but I had no choice.
I have never imagined that twenty years later I will be flooded with countless gadgets and CD-ROMs piled up in my professional locker. Today, in my capacity as a high school Chemistry teacher, I take technology for granted. I begin my day plugging my laptop to a SMART Board, and I use Java applets to explain chemical equilibrium. A majority of my students use data loggers and probes with ease. They use LabQuests in place of magnifying lenses and Logger Pro (software for data collection and analysis) instead of grid paper. They collect and process data at the click of a mouse, and save it on their USBs to work in the convenience of their living rooms. I kind of 'envy' them.
As I mentioned earlier, technology should add value when used for classroom practice. It should catalyze the ‘aha’ moments in my science class. I want technology to be a game changer. I also want technology to encourage more boys and girls to opt for complex sciences in their junior and senior years. I want technology to bridge curricular gaps and accelerate skills in student communities. How do we reach there? Of course, there is no magic wand. I am an optimist, and I think technology could be one of the key ingredients of this achievement formula.
This is where Web 2.0, which is usually referred to the new breed of internet-based tools, can impact my student learning in a meaningful way. For example, I want my students to blog; so that I could gauge their conceptual understanding, and that would even allow me to reform my teaching strategies. I want to use ‘Edmodo’ (a social learning network) to keep my professional communication alive and up- to- date. I want to tweet to give a sense of pedagogical security and assurance to all my students. But this is not everything. Technology is more than social networks.
It’s not important how trendy a particular gadget is. Even video analysis using a digital camera could be of great help in my ninth grade Kinematics class. A TI calculator could be used in place of a broken data logger. My eighth graders could just watch a You- Tube video to figure out the mechanics of human transport. My senior Chemistry students could write an algorithm to describe the orbital shapes. In short, my technology oath lies in using a set of flexible tools consistently and coherently, so that my students could achieve the following goals in about a hundred and ninety working days:
-To deepen content understanding
-To enhance reasoning and problem-solving skills
-To improve presentation skills
-To promote environmental awareness
-To foster academic honesty and integrity
4 comments:
Mr. Vee
(You'll have to give me guidance on how to pronounce your full name)
You seem to be why the U.S. must improve their competitive edge!- Good for you! You really seem to have a handle on how to use technology as a tool, to get it to work for you. Now, tell me, in the Japanese and Indian educational systems-is there much emphasis on the inquiry approach to scientific education? How do these educational systems foster critical thinking skills? Is there a push in the systems towards "21st century skills"? Obviously you use technology as an integral tool to develop your students understanding of content.From what you know about the American system- where do you think we need improvement? I look forward to your insight into exploring not only technology into the classroom, but also the overarching principles outlined in these first few readings.
Hi, Mary:
Thank you for your kind words, and please call me Vee. This is how you can pronounce my full name. (“Vee” as in week ; “ra” as in rug; “iah” as in messiah; “Ku” as in Kuwait, “mma.ri” as in summary)
Well, I went to a private school in India, and I was lucky to have good teachers. I think that private schools, in any country, are better equipped and use a hands-on approach towards math and science learning. However, some of my friends who studied in public schools complained of rote learning, and it still happens. As a result, even many of our college graduates back home lack the critical skill set needed for employment. At the same time, we also have a few pockets of excellence that produce world-class graduates. But the silver lining is that our government is planning to expand such centers of excellence, and is also trying to invite American colleges to open campuses in India. I am currently teaching at a private international school in Tokyo, and don’t know much about the Japanese public school system. Based on what I have heard from my friends, there is some kind of inquiry approach and the Japanese teachers use a fair amount of technology (science kits, probeware etc.) in their classrooms. Recently, some Japanese schools have switched to a rigorous international curriculum (IB), and I think this is a good step forward. The Japanese government is also hiring more certified foreign teachers for their public schools. Nevertheless, I believe that America continues to be the center of world’s innovation. Most of the tools that I use were made in the US. What ails Indian, Japanese or American public school system is a general lack of sophisticated resources (technological and human), quality professional development (job-alikes) for teachers, and financial incentives that can attract passionate people who would otherwise become bankers or engineers. Even the educational policies, with a greater focus on test scores, can hinder teaching innovation in classrooms. I also believe that teachers need to input quality time into their lesson planning. How many teachers would consistently incorporate new ideas that they have gotten from workshops or other professional development sessions into their classroom instruction?
Mr. Vee,
I think the technology is the new invention of human in this century, so we have to recruit it in our different needs like education, medical, and other life needs. I think the education must drive the technology to achieve our optimal goal of education with easy access to recourses of information to everybody. With the technology the education will be more available to people.
Thank you for the comment, Alanoud. My dream is to see an international teachers' network in the future, where we could all share resources, ideas, and above all, make these resources accessible to everyone, particularly the under-privileged. That's when the pedagogical world would be really flat.
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