Hello and welcome to my website! My name is Karin Brown, and I created this website as part of my coursework for EdTech 541, Integrating Technology into the Classroom Curriculum. This course is a part of the Master of Educational Technology Program through Boise State University. The links at the top of the page will lead you through all of the assignments and projects I have completed this semester.
Thank you for stopping by!
Also, the following is the Vision Statement I created for this course.
In today’s technologically advanced world, students must learn technological skills in order to be successful in their lives after school. Twenty-first century educators have a responsibility to teach their students these skills if they hope to prepare their students for what they will experience in the future. The days of drill and practice activities and rote memorization are long gone. Today’s students need more. Roblyer (2016) reiterated this point when she stated,
In the past, educational goals reflected society’s emphasis on the need for basic skills—such as reading, writing, and arithmetic—and an agreed-on body of information considered essential for everyone. Many educators now believe that the world is changing too quickly to define education in terms of specific information or skills; they believe it should focus instead on more general capabilities, such as “learning to learn” skills, that will help citizens cope with inevitable technological change (p. 34)
It is no secret that today’s world is rapidly changing. One simple google search of “jobs that didn’t exist 10 years ago” brings up dozens of lists of careers that broke into the job market for the first time within the last decade. Teachers can no longer expect to teach their students the same way they were taught. If they choose this path, their students will be extremely ill-equipped to handle the constant change that is the norm today.
For this reason, the goal of Educational Technology should be to prepare students for the world around them. Technological devices, such as smartphones, computers, tablets, and more, have become seamlessly integrated into the daily lives of many of today’s children and teenagers. Schools should be no different. According to eduopia.org (2007),
When technology integration is at its best, a child or a teacher doesn't stop to think that he or she is using a technology tool—it is second nature… Seamless integration is when students are not only using technology daily, but have access to a variety of tools that match the task at hand and provide them the opportunity to build a deeper understanding of content.
Technology has become second nature to many of today’s students, and it does not appear that this fact is going to change anytime soon. In order for students to be prepared for the future, they must know how to use technology effectively and efficiently, and today’s educators have a responsibility to teach these skills.
What’s more, there are several issues that Educational Technology has the potential to address. Roblyer (2016) states that Educational Technology can help motivate students by getting their attention, allowing them to share their work online with an authentic audience, or helping them move through lower-level skills more quickly so they can focus more on higher-level thinking. Also, Educational Technology can support student learning in a variety of ways. Educational Technology can provide individualized drill and practice problems catered to each student, help students with disabilities to communicate and participate with others more easily, or can provide almost immediate access to information on the internet (p. 23). Since the onset of formal education, teachers have struggled to motivate students and to support individualized learning. Educational Technology has the potential to create solutions to these issues so that every student has the opportunity to learn what he or she needs to know in order to be successful in the future.
Finally, there are multiple learning theories that drive Educational Technology. According to Roblyer (2016), the best way to implement Educational Technology is through a combination of direct learning and inquiry-based learning (p. 49). Direct learning is the traditional form of teaching, where the teacher contains the majority of the knowledge and passes it on through lectures or note-taking. Inquiry-based learning is a newer form of teaching, where the teacher acts more like a guide who helps students reach understanding on their own. Educational Technology can play a big role in bringing these two theories together, because it can be used in both of them. Direct instruction is useful to teach students basic skills and foundational knowledge, and drill and practice computer programs are great tools to aid in this type of instruction. However, Educational Technology is also useful for inquiry-based learning since it allows students to search for information on the internet, publish their work for an authentic audience, or communicate with other students from around the world. When students combine direct learning with inquiry-based learning, they receive the best of both worlds. They learn the foundational skills they need while perfecting their ability to think for themselves and solve complex problems. Educational Technology is essential in preparing today’s students for their future lives after school.
Resources:
(2007, Nov 5). What is successful technology integration? Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-description.