Teaching with Technology, Module 4 -Keeping Relevant with Technology

My triggering question for this module was: How can I continually improve my knowledge of, and expertise in, technology to incorporate in my professional practice?

In researching this question I found a couple articles that spoke, at least in part, to my focus. The first article I found deals with the need for teachers and technology directors to work together to ensure that both the desired technology used is appropriate and that the programs are supported with appropriate levels of technology. Too often, Johnson (2013) argues, teachers forge ahead with technology use that is either not best supported by the technology available (or its' current set up) or technology directors move ahead with technology allocations that are not what a teachers needs or requires. One of the best ways in which to ensure that technology is appropriate for all is to form a "technology advisory committee" which is "composed primarily of educators (teachers, librarians, and administrators) but should also include parents and students—and of course, representatives of the technology staff" (Johnson, 2013, p. 81). The use of this committee approach is necessary to ensure that both the technology is appropriate and the technology is supported.

The second article I found discusses the need to have all levels, teachers, districts, and states, involved to effectively and lastingly incorporate technology in the classroom. Gunn and Hollingsworth (2013) researched the Southern Alberta school district and their implementation of technology in the classroom. The findings indicated that when the district implemented a 21st century curriculum shift including technology, they also utilized a focused curriculum of professional development over the course of three years yielding a significant growth in teacher comfort, familiarity, and use of the technology. Although the study was limited to three years, the authors acknowledged the need for an extended observation to determine whether this was a sustained shift, the fact that most teachers incorporated the desired technologies and strategies shows a significant impact by the districts program. Gunn and Hollingsworth (2013) conclude that, "any school district willing to undergo such a project must be willing to commit time and monies exclusively designated for the upgrading of information and communication technologies. They must also be willing to provide significant systemic support for pedagogical change" (p. 215). This effort is necessary for any school district to impart change, however, the lack of necessary support seems to be the downfall of many district or state-led changes.

Sonja found an article of particular interest to me as a math teacher. In the article, Pearce led his math classroom into a completely online, paper-free class. The class would do all of their work on an iPad and then upload it as a pdf so that he could see what his students did that day. The results of this article were fascinating in that student self reported "I am good at math" at nearly 80% after having worked through the digital class Pearson set up (2015, p. 49). This shift from worksheets and such to a completely digital class is something I have often wondered about as schools are limiting copies due to budgets, finding difficulty in shifting their curriculum to the new Common Core State Standards, and experiencing a necessary change in the way teachers need to relate information to students because of the prevalence of technology.

In closing, the use of technology must include everyone involved with education, students, parents, teachers, administrators, and district officials. For a district to initiate lasting change, they need to provide significant resources so that teachers have enough training to feel comfortable and knowledgeable with the changes. And, there are teachers out there who have experimented with many different types of classroom set ups if we look for them. I had not realized that a math class can be completely digital, but, thanks to Sonja, I have an outline of what that could potentially look like.

Gunn, T. & Hollingsworth, M. (2013). The implementation and assessment of a shared 21st century learning vision: a district-based approach. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, Vol. 45 (Issue 3), p201-228. http://ezproxy.spu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eft&AN=89525588&site=ehost-live (Links to an external site.)

Johnson, D. (Sept. 2013). Good technology choices: a team effort. Educational Leadership, Vol. 71 (Issue 1), p80-82. http://ezproxy.spu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eft&AN=90068955&site=ehost-live (Links to an external site.)

Pearce, K. (2015). Creating Leaders through the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program. Educational Forum, 79(1), 46-52. DOI: 10.1080/00131725.2015.972812

Teaching with Technology, Module 4 - Privacy and the use of technology in public schools.

There are many laws surrounding the expectation of privacy for students in the public schools system, especially with regard to the use of technology. Unfortunately, these rights to privacy are not always easy to enforce or ensure with the prevalence of technology use in today's school environment. I read an article by the Center for Educational Privacy and Law at the University of San Diego (CEPAL) titled, "Legal Implications of Using Digital Technology in Public Schools: Effects on Privacy". In this article, several interesting points were made concerning the difficulty of technology use in public schools and maintaining student confidentiality. One of the most interesting concerns for privacy that schools face is called householding. "Householding allows data collection to occur across devices regardless of whether or not they are owned by a district or owned privately by a student" (CEPAL, 2015, p. 6). This rather sneaky method for data collection is strong enough to pinpoint usage across devices at any time, so students are not immune to data collection whether working on school work at school or home. The many laws that protect students autonomy are not much of a deterrent to this sort of activity. The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), and Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), are limited in what they have jurisdiction over and the depth to which online information is protected. For example, FERPA does not have any consideration for third party application operators, the PPRA has made considerations for protection, but does not include any currently, and COPRA only protects children up to the age of 13, so is very limited once children are out of the primary grades (CEPAL, 2015, p. 10). Furthermore, the only real protection that seems to be available to parents is opting out of the use of technology devices provided by schools and districts. This brings up other, very real implications concerning the equity of technology availability, especially at high poverty schools where many, if not most, families do not have reliable access to the requisite technology.

An article provided by Dr. Wicks and Sonja is concerned with online privacy as a part of creating digitally competent young people. The article had some interesting aspects that are specific to the subject of my inquiry, namely Ribble's three categories and nine elements of digital citizenship (Ribble & Miller, 2013, p. 140). The category of interest is Protect Yourself/Protect Others, and provides three elements, Digital Rights and Responsibilities, Digital Security, and Digital Health and Welfare (Ribble & Miller, 2013, p. 141). Of particular note, is the Digital Rights and Responsibilities section where educational leaders are encouraged to remind students that they are to follow certain guidelines to continue using the technology at school or provided by the school. Students are further reminded that if they find themselves in a situation that doesn't feel right, they should remove themselves from that situation and report this to an educator or administrator (Ribble & Miller, 2013, p. 140). These steps taken could potentially aid in keeping student information private, especially if an individual is attempting to illegally gain private information regarding a student.

I also liked the resource that Cassie posted, Netiquette, by Rutgers University. Although this resource is more in the vain of how to interact with others in an online educational environment, it has some great information that students should know and understand when partaking in online courses and collaboration. Understanding how to interact with others in an online venue could also help students in the ethical use of online tools and in the protection of their own and others' personal information. This type of resource could easily incorporate information about privacy and how students can stay safe when using various online resources.

Overall, the use of technology is a great way to help engage students in the educational process. However, this use of technology should not come at the expense of keeping student information private. There needs to be some additions to current federal laws to aid students, parents, and the educational community in their work to keep student information private. From the resources I read, there are some additions to current law and other legislation in the works, but they still need to be approved before they can help this privacy protection. Educators should do all they can to help curb the release of personal information, according to federal and state laws, and parents need to work with their student to teach them about appropriate and safe use of technology.

Center for Education Policy and Law (2015). Legal Implications of Using Digital Technology in Public Schools: Effects on Privacy. San Diego, CA: University of San Diego.

Ribble, M., & Miller, T. N. (2013). Educational Leadership in an Online World: Connecting Students to Technology Responsibly, Safely, and Ethically. Journal Of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 17(1), 137-145.

 

Standard 12 - Teaching with Technology, Module 1, ISTE Standard 1

ISTE1 Triggering question: How can I, as a high school Math teacher, utilize technology to both enhance student learning and create genuine opportunities for creative thinking and problem solving?

Traditionally, the mathematics classroom has been a space where teachers lecture and students take notes followed with some practice. This is especially true of the higher level classes such as calculus. In my quest to increase engagement and rigor, I decided to work to finding ideas of how I can use technology to help my students' understanding and problem solving. I am not interested in introducing technology for the sake of using technology. As, Merzenich states that, "simply adding computers to conventional teaching strategies is an unsophisticated approach that, it is not surprising, adds very little to students' experiences in the classroom" (as cited in Robin, 2008, p. 221).

In order to create genuine opportunities for learning and investigation I have used some programs such as ST Math and Think Through Math that are adaptive to students' needs. I have found that these resources are less than ideal. I have also used the graphing program GeoGebra to render graphs for practice and such in the classroom. I had not thought of using GeoGebra for learning opportunities using applets as suggested by M. Hohenwarter, L. Hohenwarter, Kreis, and Lavicza in their article Teaching and Learning Calculus with Free Dynamic Mathematics Software Geogebra (2008). The use of GeoGebra in a class such as calculus was not an obvious connection that I made, but Hohenwarter et al., found that this tool may be used to "help students to better understand their algebraic manipulations of functions, to visualize characteristics of certain types of functions, and to improve their skills of sketching graphs of functions and their derivatives" (2008, p. 4). Students can certainly learn about calculus the "traditional" way via lecture and practice, but may reach greater depths of understanding working with the reasons why certain properties and theorems work (effectively learning the why, not just the how).

Here is an example applet that lets students discover information about derivatives.

An article found by Sonja Ostling, Metacognition and the Influence of Polling Systems: How do Clickers Compare with Low Technology Systems, informed me further by suggesting the use of clickers or an app or website to poll students on their understanding (Brady, Seli, Rosenthal, 2013). This use of technology was one I did not realize until I read this article and saw the potential uses for formative assessment with this type of information gathering. The traditional use of hands up or down, or thumbs up or down, in response to a teacher asking who understands material may result in students being influenced one way or the other by their peers providing me with flawed information.

The combination of using GeoGebra with my calculus class and using clickers, or a viable alternative, with all classes may result in more engaged students who are learning the information with greater depth and greater retention, as well as, providing me with valuable, real time information about students' understanding, respectively.

Brady, M., Seli, H., & Rosenthal, J. (2013). Metacognition and the influence of polling systems: how do clickers compare with low technology systems. Education Technology Research and Development, 61, 885-902. http://ezproxy.spu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip&db=eric&AN=EJ1040689&site=ehost-live

Hohenwarter, M., Hohenwarter, J., Kreis, Y., & Lavicza, Z. (2008). Teaching and learning calculus with free dynamic mathematics software GeoGebra. Proceedings from TSG 16: Research and development in the teaching and learning of calculus. ICME 11, Monterey, Mexico. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAAahUKEwjo4sq7vbvIAhVCXIgKHXt9DWY&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geogebra.org%2Fpublications%2F2008-ICME-TSG16-Calculus-GeoGebra-Paper.pdf&usg=AFQjCNEMCFCRQaEgMnVOzLF5g6F-H1kgFw

Robin, B. (2008). Digital storytelling: a powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom. Theory Into Practice, 47, 220-228. https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/972604/files/36977374?module_item_id=8061854