4.3: Technology
As teachers, when we talk about using technology in our classroom, we are talking about adding a layer of literacy, both for ourselves and our students. Much like the more traditional literacy mediums of reading, writing and speaking, technology becomes a means of communicating, researching, delivering information, demonstrating content and applying knowledge. Technology should be approached in the classroom by considering access, motivation, purpose, meaning, vocabulary, context, interpretation, and other key components of literacy.
Communicating: evidence/experience includes e-mail, Oncourse, Website design, E-class, Mathtype
Technology offers us an array of communication advantages. From e-mail to Web-based curriculum, technology helps us to be more accessible to students, parents, colleagues, and administrators. In our fast-food society that demands immediate responses, the speed and efficiency of electronic access to course information, assignments and materials via the World Wide Web requires skills that all teachers should acquire. In addition to the Website you are currently browsing, I have designed three other professional sites through self-taught means. As teachers, our minimum accountability should be: 1) to develop a basic Website where we can post course materials for students, families and administrators; and 2) to encourage open e-mail communication for inquiry and feedback.
Caution: e-mail communication can easily be taken out of context and cause unnecessary friction or confrontation.
The impersonal nature of this form of communication is convenient, but it lacks the personal context and opportunity for further explanation that often keeps emotions in check. Be careful what you say and how you say it, especially if you are replying in a reactionary state to something you received. Our telephones are still valid forms of technology that should not be too often overlooked as valid and interpersonal means of communication!
Researching: INSPIRE DATABASE, LIBRARY
The most difficult part of research for students is finding reliable information in the endless arrays of electronic access to information. Utilizing Media Specialists and helping students explore the reliable resources their school offers will familiarize them with what differentiates reliable information from bad sources. Two amazing resources exist in Marion County and are accessible to students through the library at my mentoring high school, Marion County Internet Library, and The Indiana Virtual Library.
Delivering Information: evidence/experience includes audio/video, Power Point, Skyward Gradebook, ELMO, Smartboard, overhead, TV/projector
I have recently attempted to improve my literacy in this area, yet I have barely scratched the surface of the many ways teachers can use technology to deliver information. Although math is traditionally most elegant with chalk and board, finding ways to introduce material to students by meeting them in their world will hold interest and generate multiple representations of content.
Over the summer, I took advantage of a Professional Development opportunity at my mentoring high school. A course in audio/video production and editing was offered to teachers in the township. I was able to develop some proficiency in this area and created two video projects in a single week. Incorporating existing audio/video and still photos, making new digital video recordings, creating graphics and text, and laying background music are just a few of the skills I developed in the creation of two DVD’s. One DVD is offered as evidence here, because I hope to develop future projects to use as instruction or as projects for my students as a medium demonstrate their content knowledge. This technology is underutilized in the mathematics departments of each school I visit.
In addition to this exciting and engaging medium, teachers have increasing opportunities to use Smart Board, ELMO, computers with digital projectors, and PowerPoint do deliver content in the classroom. A few weeks ago, I decided to take a stab at PowerPoint for the first time. CoT Portfolio session was presented to the group in this format. As I continue to become more familiar with this medium, I have discovered ways to make it more interactive, but there were many benefits to using the minimum capabilities of the software in the first place. First, it forced me to break into a new medium. More than anything, I think this holds teachers back. A fear of the unfamiliar or of being upstaged by a student who is likely more literate with the technology keeps many teachers most comfortable giving a traditional presentation using lecture and chalk/marker board with the occasional overhead projector—for effect. I also liked the PowerPoint presentation because it allowed me to accurately “rewind” and revisit earlier topics. The most beneficial part of my presentation is the access the group still has to the presentation through the file uploaded into Oncourse.
Demonstrating Content: evidence/experience includes graphing calculators, Geometer’s Sketchpad, Web links and games, NUMB3RS, Microsoft Excel, Maple, Matlab, Minitab
Once students have been introduced to material, it is important to relate that material in sensory ways that address their various learning styles. Demonstrating mathematical content using graphing calculators, content-specific software, Web-links to appropriate interactive sites and games, television and music, and application software brings the mathematics to life and can engage students on their level of interest or sensory interaction.
In past lessons, I have utilized interactive games (Web activity 1, Web activity 2) that I’ve found on the Web as warm-up activities or supervised practice. Microsoft Excel introduces students to a basic computer skill they should know (spreadsheets, writing formulas, references, etc.) while offering opportunities for conjecture about mathematics as well. The National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) also offers many suggestions for content-specific activities (Web activity 3) on the Web, including some that are being developed that demonstrate the math used in real FBI cases as depicted in the popular TV drama NUMB3RS.
Other technology exists for students to demonstrate their knowledge by using graphing calculators and other graphing software such as Maple, Matlab, and Minitab. These programs connect data and graphic representations in powerful ways that enable students to analyze their work and interpret results using visual cues.
One of my favorites is Geometer’s Sketchpad. (Click here, then click "Take a Tour of Version 4" for a demonstration if this software's power.) I have not used this instructionally yet, but the possibilities it offers for conjecture in geometry are quite powerful for students. As a student, I took an assignment to the extreme by demonstrating a simple (as assigned) angle copy by mimicking a Euclidean construction that would have been done with a collapsible compass. In this demonstration, one cannot assume that the compass preserves the same relationship once it has been picked up and moved. Although the assignment was more challenging and quite complex, I was hooked on the process and completely engaged in the extreme demonstration. I hope to be able to access this resource in a classroom setting and allow students the same level of curiosity and exploration.
Applying knowledge: problem-solving activities, application software, computer programming
It is now important for students to understand that the instruction has real-world applications. Last week I was speaking with a student who was seeking help from my mentor teacher for a Calculus problem. He admitted that Calculus was beyond his level of expertise, so she consulted me. While we were discussing the current topics in her class, I asked her what she hoped to study after high school. She indicated she hoped to study bio-technology. As we worked through the problem, she told me that she couldn’t wait to get into the field where computers do all of the work for you. I was quick to share with her my disagreement.
I believe that the technology used in industry is invaluable, but is only one of many tools that too often doubles as a crutch. I explained to her that she needed to pay attention and understand Calculus. Although a computer will generate a solution to her problem, if she does not understand the nature of the problem well enough to correctly input data or interpret the results, her career as a bio-technician will be short-lived. We must always maintain a theoretical understanding of the actions our computers are performing for us in order to get the most out of them as tools.
Have you ever taken a computer programming class? Not only must you understand the computer’s language in order to write a program that it can execute, but you must also understand the way it stores and accesses memory. It occurred to me in my computer programming class that you must also have a thorough understanding of the nature of the problem the computer will solve. Students much more advanced in computer programming than I initially struggled with simple assignments that required basic mathematical computations at the core of the problem. You cannot tell a computer how to find a prime number if you do not understand or cannot articulate it yourself.
In summary, many barriers still confront us in education and prevent the full benefit of technology. Technology is expensive; teacher interest and training is age-dependent and time consuming; and access is economically and geographically unbalanced. Even so, it is important that we continue to embrace the new age, because every day we stand still, the world around us is changing, advancing and “flattening.” If for no other reason, for the benefit of our students we must prepare them to be technology-literate at the most advanced level possible. Technology impacts so much of the curriculum in both the way we teach and the way our students learn. There are so many examples I can find that demonstrate my commitment to technology, that I will only submit a few as evidence. Many explanations of ideas and experience contained herein are representative of other ways technology should be valued and incorporated, although I choose not to present all of them as formal evidence.
