I was thinking about the following questions recently and I thought it would be nice to share my thoughts and ask for feedback from any readers...
What is your working
definition of technology?
What is your working definition of assessment?
How
are you currently facilitating the use of technology in the classroom?
My definition of technology
is fairly loose. I would say it is the application of new science or concepts
for the purpose of making a task more efficient or effective. In this
discussion I often share a funny story from my experience consulting. While visiting
a school to offer professional development I was told by a veteran teacher that
she couldn’t do “the SMART Board thing” because it was “too high tech.” I told
her it was basically just a really fancy mouse pad. That night I looked up some
interesting quotes and found one from Horace Mann himself (which I could not
find to share here). He said something like ‘this board will revolutionize
education and change every classroom…’ He was talking about the chalkboard, of
course, around the turn of the century. I put the quote on the title page of
the second day’s workshop and asked everyone what the thought. They all said
“Yes, SMART Boards will change everything, but it’s tough to figure out how to
integrate it into lesson we already teach and strategies we already use.” I let
them talk about and get a little fired up, then I clicked to reveal the author,
date, and subject.
It seems to me that teachers
(and businesses) feel the same way I described in a great many circumstances.
Just like hand held slate boards were once revolutionary teaching and
assessment tools, dare I say “high tech,” so now are web 2.0 and other
resources. It is all relative. To facilitate eh use of technology in the
classrooms within my district I prefer slow and methodical implementation. I
try to give teachers a dozen reasons to use a particular tool and let them want
to learn and use it. If you get stakeholder buy in anything is possible. Once
interest builds I develop user specific training to teach basic features and functions
to enable exploration. The next phase is professional development. This PD
should be hands-on, relevant to the content areas of those involved, and
ongoing. I do my best to reproduce everything produced in presentation format
and post it online. This way it can be revisited when needed.
One of my favorite ideas
sweeping the education community right now is the move toward mobility. I am
doing my best to win grants for my teachers to use iPads, iPods, and other
tablets in the classrooms. By enabling the learners to succeed in so many
facets, I open up numerous opportunities to tap into web response systems.
Some of my favorite online
tools at the moment are www.questionpress.com and www.polleverywhere.com . These tools allow teachers to use a browser and any texting
cell phone as a student responder. With the first item, I suggest to teachers
that they import standards based assessments required by the state into the
online database. Then they can align standards to questions and deliver the
practice test numerous times a year to gauge student retention and progress. In
short it is a brilliant tool to find where on the learning continuum a student
lies through this summative assessment. In the context of the second tool, I
suggest teachers use instant polling features to create dynamic formative
assessments. Instant polls are wonderful for anticipatory sets, anonymous
polling, and simple understanding checks.
