Chapter #4 - Integrating Technology and Creating Change

Focus Question: How can teachers create change in classrooms using technology?

• How a technology is designed and how a technology is used will either expand or limit that technology's change impact in schools.
• Digital pens are an example of technology that has a greater or lesser capacity to create change depending on each type's technological capabilities.
• Preparing class notes using a tablet PC is an example of how a technology can fundamentally change how teachers and students interact with academic materials.

Although there has been a strong push to educational technology into the hands of teachers and students, many obstacles to implementation still exist.  Equipment may not be easily accessible.   Hardware and software often pose problems for teachers in the classroom, and just in time technical support may be unavailable.

 

Learning the new roles and ways of teaching that go hand in hand with technology integration requires that teachers have opportunities to participate in an extended process of professional development.  Teachers need time to acquire technology skills and develop new teaching strategies for integrating technology into the classroom.

Tech Tool 4.1:  Edutopia

Edutopia: Information and Inspiration for Innovative Teaching in K-12 Schools, programs that are improving the way students learn.  The series focuses on evidenced based successes and uses how to videos and tip lists to help education leader.

No matter what your skill level, integrating technology into your classroom offers the change to increase student interest and teach valuable professional skills and have some fun.  A quick internet search may help you identify ways to supplement your lessons with intesting new material.

Resources:

Maloy, R. W., Verock-O, R. E., Edwards, S. A., & Woolf, B. P. (2010). Transforming
teaching with new technologies. Allyn & Bacon