Hughes and Scharber's title is pedantic. The word deictic causes me cognitive dissonance; a condition that is encouraged throughout chapter 4 to foster more knowledge development in in-service teachers. Besides the pedantic title, I found Hughes' previous research promotion and E-TPCK claim staking in the second paragraph rather donnish.
Beyond the awkward first impression, this chapter was well organized, had insightful case studies and reinforced the UMF Masters Program organizational philosophy that [technology] integration "can not be accomplished through isolated technology experiences or without ongoing discussion, modeling and evaluation" (Bowman, 2000).
The authors acknowledge that E-TPCK and TPCK in are temporary concepts and it is important to currently differentiate between TK and PCK until technology integration becomes more culturalized in schools. The Ed-U-Tech program at the University of Minnesota that was initially supported by the now archived Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) initiative has a similar structure to our graduate courses. I liked that the co-inqury, multi-genre writing project assigned only 2 to 4 middle school student to each pre-service teacher and that a hybrid form of face time and Internet and Communication Technology (ICT) were used to facilitate the project.
The case studies highlighted differences in technology integration. Contrasting Laura's case with Nell's case was particularly interesting. Laura' s use of general technology resources to support her teaching as opposed to Nell's richer integration experience that was grounded in her English content and pedagogy knowledge really highlighted differences in technology integration quality. Nell's playful, informal learning of different technologies really supported her integration efforts. I believe all teacher's, when motivated to use technology, need time to play with the ICT themselves in order to be comfortable enough to use it in the classroom.
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Meg Doughty's share regarding the difficulties of setting up Wikispaces accounts for her students is a common experience of many educational technology leaders. It is important to be persistent and calm when working with administration and tech directors in your school.
ReplyDeleteMeg and Maggie mentionined how young kids can use technology made me think of how effortlessly kids explore new computer environments like 3 and 5 year old navigating through circuitous Wii game system menus. It also made me think of a Vimeo site where a young French speaking child has many videos of her telling stories annotated in English. It is a great language learning resource for old and young people. It is at http://www.vimeo.com/2113477.
Maggie's http://www.safeteens.com/ resource had some very useful information. I would like to review the pledges (Kid and Parent) more closely for use at home and school.
You say persistent...I like that! It sounds much better than pig-headed. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of young kids using technology, I flash to the series of commercials by Microsoft showing kids taking pictures. You can see one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhre2C4THT4
She is 4 and a half. Admittedly, students might need more help at that age, but they can do it!
I also loved Maggie's safe teens site. I'm definitely going to be using that with my kids.
It is funny, but that commercial came to my mind during our class discussion as well. We so often forget how simple the steps are for someone to whom the whole world is new. Little ones are learning how to navigate all of the tools before them. They are still learning the mechanics of crayons and building blocks, so of course this is just another toy to them.
ReplyDeleteAs for patience. I just lost the movie that my 6th graders spent 3 or 4 weeks working on. So yes, patience with technology and acceptance of its limitations are a necessity. I plan on spending considerable time with my tech. coordinators to try to get it back. I think the stress of getting beyond the setbacks was an essential piece to this chapter.