I’d like to bring some light to the book we’ve been reading for our class. With all the technologies we’ve been consuming we’ve not had much time to reflect on the reading. Tonight I’ve been reading the “What it all means” chapter 10 and realizing the responsibilities we have in the role of technology educators. While much of what we learn in the skill zone is exciting and the realized abilities for ourselves and our students to make cool stuff with our new literacies is all good and certainly fun, I can’t help ponder the more serious side of all of this. Will Richardson highlights some of these topics from which I’ve gleaned the following:
We must model and teach:
- Critical thinking, reading, viewing and writing - not simply reiterating what we have consumed but always questioning for deeper understanding
- Safe and ethical use of the tools
- Creative ways to share ideas and equally important– ways to manage ideas we collect and create
- The power of collaboration and the potential for good that can come from it
There is considerable weight to the comment from George Siemens, that (in this new space) “Ideas are presented as a starting point for dialog, not the ending point” (Seimens, 2002)
I respect all of your opinions and I hope to get some feedback on these questions:
How can we be more than trainers of technology? What must we do to be leaders in this new space?
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful Web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Jodi, I think what you are saying here is important. Years (over a decade) ago I was at some sort of tech PD and the presenter cautioned about exactly the point I think you, Richardson, and Prof. Ingram are trying to make. Throwing technology at the students for the sake of technology isn't very effective, and it isn't responsible teaching. At the time, the presented framed it around using PowerPoint, just for the sake of doing a Powerpoint, with no real value-added. He called it, Powerpointlessness. I loved that term, and even when not using Powerpoint specifically, the concept is still important. I think it is important to ask, what is the reason for using this technology, how will it enhance teaching and learning? I think many of the web 2.0 tools that we have been investigating in this class can quite easily help teachers move beyond "PowerPointlessness." But as your blog indicates, we as educators need to be mindful of how we are doing this.
ReplyDeleteHa, PowerPointlessness! I love it! I've always used the term "Death by PowerPoint" myself, but I may have to borrow this term to mix it up :)
Delete-Katie
Have you seen Edward Tufte's take on Powerpoint?
DeleteThe Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within
An essay that claims "slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations,...weakens verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupts statistical analysis."
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/powerpoint
I'm sort of echoing Lori's comment a bit here, but what I always stress when working with my faculty on any kind of technology, is that pedagogy drives technology and not the other way around. I am a big proponent of using technology in education, but ONLY when its use serves a pedagogical purpose. It should be used to support your learning outcomes and engage your students, and it should be easy to use so as not to be disruptive to instruction. Unfortunately, I do still see some instructors who want to use technology just for the sake of using technology.
ReplyDelete-Katie