The Technology Integreation Matrix

rating: Active - adoption, Collaborative - adaptation (sometimes infusion), Constructive - adoption to adaptation, Authentic - adaptation, Goal Directed - adaptation

For me, it’s really hard to perform well on the Technology Integration Matrix, because my students and I only have access to a computer lab twice a month.  Once we do get in there, we have access to some pretty powerful proprietary software (Sony Soloist and Sony Virtuoso), but because students don’t have access to this software outside of the Language Lab, any work that we do on lab days has to be concluded during the period and can’t be continued outside of class.  If I want to assign something that students can continue to work on outside of class, then I have to forfeit the time that we have to work with the language software for those two weeks.  Our students don’t have personal electronic devices, so on a day-to-day basis, the only use of technology I have access to is a projector connected to my computer, which is the same computer I use to make my lesson plans, check my email, enter attendance, and input grades.  Because of the sensitive information available under my log-in and the time that it takes to switch users, it’s pretty difficult to encourage or even allow student-led, technology-based learning.

There is always the option of emphasizing online classwork and requiring students to complete those assignments outside of class.  Most students have Internet access at home, and those that don’t can technically access it after school in a lab or library.  However, this becomes very difficult for students that travel for athletics, attend internships, or participate in other after-school activities.  Also, I am not very comfortable assigning students work that they haven’t been able to get started in class, because I feel that most questions don’t arise until a student really gets going on his/her own.  I don’t feel comfortable holding students accountable for completing something if I wasn’t available to answer questions when they were trying to get started.  I am hoping that this course will help me learn methods of overcoming these difficulties and learn to design online course components that I can feel comfortable assigning during time periods that I won’t be available to oversee them.

When I do rate myself, I see a lot of variability.  Some assignments lie mainly on the adaptation level, but I do tend to give myself higher marks for collaboration.  Collaboration, at least to me, seems a natural fit for learning a new language, because communication and interaction is pretty much the point of the whole class.  In my lower level classes, I honestly don’t exceed the adaptation level very much in terms of technology use by students.  However, I do slightly better in the higher level classes, at least for the capstone project.  For this project, students can create any type of audiovisual presentation they want, and they can use any tools they want to do so.  Pretty much the only restriction is that they have to be able to share the final product with the rest of their class during the period.  It’s a lot of work for the students, but they seem to have fun with it.  I wouldn’t want to demand that much from students all year, because it seems pretty unrealistic to expect that level of commitment from them constantly when they all have other classes that they also need to focus on, but I may be able to adapt some of those principles into other projects, both for use in the upper level classes through the year, and also for use in the lower level classes. 

I like the idea of offering a menu of possible activities.  Many students enjoy using technology and get a lot out of using it, whereas other students do learn while using more traditional methods.  Giving students well-thought out and guided options that they can select from may go a long way towards making the learning more engaging and individualized.   It’s a little too late to make those changes this year, because there are so many standardized tests in the month of May that our administrators put a pretty firm limit on what we can do with and require of our students this month.  The school and our district are judged by the outcome of this high-stakes testing, and the administrators want the students to concentrate on preparing for these tests without being distracted by classwork that could have been done earlier in the year.  Although I don’t agree with the emphasis on high-stakes testing, I can’t help but understand the administrative point-of-view, because this is the current reality, and we need to deal with it, like it or not.  Additionally, there is talk of bringing in personal electronic devices into the daily classroom.  When that happens (notice that I say when, not if) I will definitely have a lot of changes to make.  I don’t know exactly how I will make those changes just yet.  I will have to figure it out as I go along, but I am hoping that this course will prepare me to make meaningful adaptive changes rather than simple substitutions.

Advantages of Online Teaching and Learning

     We all know someone that we respect as being of above-average intelligence that seems to have a good ethic and probably even comes off as being quite educated…and we all remember being surprised that this person had performed rather poorly in a brick-and-mortar school.  For me, that person is my husband.  I didn’t know him in high school, but all his friends say that he was just as smart and logical then as he is now.  They affirm that he was an avid reader then, as he is now.  His parents, both biologists, taught him anatomy growing up the same way that most parents teach their kids how to understand a ball game or plant a garden.  So, why did he barely scrape through high school?  Was it an attitude problem?  By all accounts, he had even more attitude than your typical adolescent, but then you have to wonder:  did he develop an attitude because he wasn’t getting what he needed, or did he not get what he needed because of his attitude?  Or maybe you don’t have to wonder about it.  Maybe you can just decide:  you know what?  It doesn’t matter if he had a bad attitude or not, it was the responsibility of the adults to get past the fact that this kid had an attitude and figure out why he wasn’t succeeding.  If the educators at his schools had bothered to get to know him (few did), they would have realized he was highly capable.  So, how could this situation be improved for the students out there that share that story today?

     Back when my husband was in high school, traditional brick-and-mortar schools were the only readily available form of education.  A learning or health disability had to be pretty severe before any other possibilities were considered.  Today, however, we have the option of employing Online Learning.  Online learning can be conducted completely through electronic contact, or select activities can be utilized in a blended course that also meets face-to-face.  Either would have helped my husband.  In college, he eventually identified his problem.  He’s dyslexic, but it was never diagnosed, because it didn’t manifest as backwards letter writing.  It means that he reads very slowly.  He didn’t do the work, because he literally could not keep up.  His teachers knew he was intelligent, so they assumed he was lazy and not trying.  So they gave him attitude, and he gave that attitude back double, and soon, he didn’t even want to try any more.  Instead, he just studied what he felt like studying.

Wait, you are saying.  Dyslexic?  What does that have to do with online learning?  Online learning isn’t a treatment for dyslexia.  But maybe it should be.  An online learning environment ties together a lot of different types of activities.  Sure, there are word documents and text files, but there are also audio clips, videos, games, and other interactive programs.  In the brick-and-mortar schools of two decades ago, teachers couldn’t handout a video and tell students to watch it at home.  They certainly couldn’t expect students to create their own video.  Homework was pretty much reading and writing.  But in a blended or exclusively online classroom, those types of assignments are commonplace.

     Another problem is focus.  He can work on a problem he is fascinated by literally all night long without pause.  He can get frustrated and become completely useless by a problem he has only thought about for five minutes.  Tomorrow, the problem that frustrated him might be the one that fascinates him.  Asynchronous online courses allow students to work, within a particular timeframe (of usually a week or two), at times that suit them.  My husband has clinical insomnia, and it had been diagnosed when he was in high school.  There were days he made it to school in body only, having been awake for days.  When he would lie down at night, his mind would turn back on to high gear, but by morning he would be exhausted and barely able to function.  I can only imagine how successful he would have been if he had been able to do his schooling when his brain took off, and rest when he needed to.

     Here’s a few more considerations:  My husband is 6’4” and built to match.  He reached that size early in high school.  He’s also left-handed.  He prefers cool temperatures.  Well, he’s mentioned many times that he almost never had access to a left-handed desk, and even when he wasn’t at an off-handed desk, he was squashed into a seat that was never comfortable in a room that was usually overheated.  Here again is a situation in which online learning could have benefited him.  In online learning, students have more control over their environment.  If he could have sat at a comfortable desk with a window open while working in a self-paced environment with the aid of audio and visual resources in which he could pause as needed to type out questions, comments, and concerns onto a discussion board or in a chatroom, I can only imagine what he might have achieved!  

     I've only outlined some of the challenges that affected one person known to me.  There are countless other barriers out there that online learning can help to overcome, just as there are countless individuals out there that are looking for the opportunity to break down those barriers.  Every year, online learning becomes more accessible.  Although this can't change the experience that my husband had in high school, I can look ahead to his future.  Our daughter isn't in school yet, but she is like her father in every way.  It will be very interesting to see what her high school experience is like.  I expect that it will be very different from ours, but I am hopeful that the changes will be for the better!

About Me

About me:  I am a high school Spanish teacher in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  Currently, I have a Moodle website that I use to support my classroom teaching. It contains copies of notes and practice activities, audio and video files, links to other online resources, and project templates. However, due to the limited access that my students have to the internet during class time, my class page is largely supplementary. I also have some experience with online classes from the student perspective, as I did take several of my Master’s classes in an online format. I found the online classes to be at least as beneficial as the classes that met in person. 
     I was selected to take this course because I did my research thesis on on-line learning with respect to language acquisition. I have been asking about the ways that on-line learning will affect the World Language program within my district. I am concerned about whether or not the on-line language classes currently available develop the conversational skills that are critical to functioning in a second language. Speaking involves more than just pronunciation. Students must be able to listen and respond in real time without first pausing to draft and revise a response. I also am concerned about how well the vocabulary and grammar sequences from on-line courses offered outside the district will integrate with our program. Many of our more motivated students turn to on-line classes to resolve scheduling difficulties. With more and more students turning to on-line courses for high school credit, I feel that we need to prepare an on-line program that is aligned with our classroom program. 
     I hope that this class will help me to locate some tools and resources that can be used to help students develop oral and aural skills, and I also hope to get ideas about ways to assess those skills via the internet. I also would like to develop some practice activities for students that provide immediate (pre-programmed) individualized feedback that could be used in either a blended or exclusively on-line class format.