A concept in this chapter that I enjoyed researching, was the idea of conducting surveys and having high school students fill them out. This gives us the opportunity to know how the student feels and their prospective on things in the classroom. Project Tomorrow conducted a survey among many participants, and they were questioning how many teachers are using technology to do their lesson plans and use this to engage the students. The survey results concluded that "technology is a powerful way to motivate and engage students" (Maloy, 2013). The surveys that are being conducted are trying to determine the level of boredom these kids are reaching, they are determining that classes with just paper, pencil, and reading from a book detaches them from school and they are disengaged. Another survey by Indiana University is actually an ongoing survey of High School Student Engagement, and their results are showing a consistent pattern of students losing interest in school. I used Piktochart to convey the results of their survey.
Technology can be used to enhance teaching in many ways, Chapter 2 gives us many examples as to how we can use this to help our students. Two biggest points are Instructional practices and Administrative activities. Instructional activities specifically are when the teacher is working with students directly, and helping them hands on. Some ways the book encourages teachers to do this includes using the web for class discussions, using presentations and simulations, and having students use handheld devices. I agree with all of these methods, I believe with the right restrictions on something's we can keep control of what they're doing on the devices, and it can promote their learning. I wonder how other teachers feel about this, I believe it could make one feel uncomfortable if we aren't able to control what the students are doing with the devices. I do think it is possible to have them use these devices in a productive way, the children want freedom in their learning and I think its best for them to find themselves while recognizing what type of learning is best for them. I also agree strongly with the Administrative practices, the book describes these as the "behind the scenes tasks". This is extremely important in my eyes, because I think its just as important for the teachers to be practicing technology with their grading, attendance, and lesson planning. This helps keep the teachers up to date with the tech world.
I found this video about teachers using LearnersCloud to help teach in their classes, I found this very interesting because I have never heard of the site before. After doing some research on it and the site seems like it would be very beneficial to teachers and their lesson plans.
There are many barriers brought up in this chapter that could hinder the use of technology but one really stuck out to me, and that was Digital Disconnect. Digital Disconnect if basically the way students see themselves compared to the way they see teachers. Students see themselves as tech-savvy, up to date, tech users while they see the teachers as disconnected, and know very little about technology. The book gives some ideas about how to break this disconnection, and my favorite is the idea of using the internet as a virtual textbook and a study group. I love the idea of using an online library, there is so much information available to you in one place rather than checking out a ton of books to study. Study groups are also an awesome idea that I have actually never thought about before, but now that I am thinking, they could be super helpful. Students that are having trouble at home with something going on in the class can go online and ask the class a question and the teacher could even join in and help as well. This represents and promotes teamwork and ways to work together to come up with a solution.
Resources:
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
http://piktochart.com/resources/tutorials-create-piktochart-infographic/
LearnersCloud (2013, April 30). Teacher Case Study: Using Video Tutorials in Class. Retrieved February 6, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVg4fTLX42k
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