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.