As I meandered through Edutopia, I found a blog by Mary Beth Hertz, a elementary computer teacher. Just the fact that she was able to call herself a "elementary computer teacher" without saying she taught gym, music and art to fill her schedule gave me pause to admire and envy her.
But her article, entitled, "What Does Technology Integration Mean?" http://www.edutopia.org/blog/meaning-tech-integration-elementary-mary-beth-hertz was very interesting. I have very little guidance to how well I am helping teachers integrate technology in their classroom because most districts in our area do not even provide weekly technology instruction for grades Kindergarten- 5th grade. It is solely up to the teacher to provide and incorporate technology in the classroom. This is certainly an difficult task considering all the other pressures and responsibilities classroom teachers must take on. But I really try my best to ease reluctant teachers into incorporating technology early on.
If you take the time to look at her article you will see a helpful chart on the different levels of incorporating technology in the classroom. I agree it is a work in progress. I would have liked to see some examples of easy ways to begin using technology in the classroom. But it gets one thinking about how much do we really use technology to enrich our curriculum....
Based upon your blog I navigated to edutopia to check out the chart you mentioned. While reading Hertz’s blog she spoke about not assuming that digital natives are equipped with the skills to operate the software and hardware “to create quality projects that show deep understanding of content” (Hertz, 2011). Our district sound similar to yours and probably the majority of schools. We don’t have specific technology instruction and the responsibility for integrating technology into the curriculum falls completely on the classroom teacher. Unfortunately, many are ill-equipped or overly tasked to carry out this responsibility. To move students to a level of proficiency needed beyond our classrooms walls will take concerted efforts and evaluating how we each implement/integrate technology is the first step.
ReplyDeleteHertz, M. (2011, March 16). What does "technology integration" mean? [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/meaning-tech-integration-elementary-mary-beth-hertz