While
preparing to write this post, I pulled out my pre-service Philosophy
of Education and re-read it. I hadn't looked at it in years, but I
didn't think my central beliefs about education had really changed
much. It turns out, they hadn't. Nothing I read surprised me, and I
would feel confident handing my old Philosophy to a potential
employer even today. What surprised me, A LOT, is what I didn't read.
No where in the entire document did I specifically address
educational use of technology. I defined education and discussed the
responsibilities of the state, district, school, teacher, students,
and parents. I talked about student-centered learning, the role of
the teacher as a facilitator and motivator, personalized teaching
styles, differentiation, the importance of using a variety of
content-delivery methods and assessment methods, and the role
self-reflection plays in improving the performance of both the
students and the teacher.
So
then I had to ask myself: Why? Why didn't I address the use of
technology? It certainly was something that I was thinking about
quite a lot at the time. I took classes on educational technology,
and I remember struggling with the requirement that all of my lesson
plans include the use of technology despite the fact that the only
tools with electrical cords in the classrooms I were working in were
a transparency projector and a television on a cart. I remember that
I had to get creative to meet the requirements, so I used my home
computer to make a music video that I burned to DVD. I spoofed
artists that were popular at the time (Katy Perry and Justin
Timberlake), projected the lyrics and made the students sing along.
After one such lesson, one student (a tiny fellow, so very small for
his age, and adorable) had the fortuitous timing to say to me
directly in front of my university observer, “This is the first
time I have understood anything all year!”. The enthusiasm that the
entire class showed for my lessons was a huge contrast to their
behavior under my mentor teachers, and although I knew that I
certainly couldn't realistically put that much prep work into lessons
every day, I also knew that there were tons of materials available
on-line that I could use or adapt when I wasn't creating my own. I
was immediately convinced that technology was hugely important to a
modern education, yet I didn't even touch on it in my Philosophy. Why
was that?
I
think it was because I considered the use of all available resources,
including technology resources, so vital and obvious that I didn't
feel it should be addressed as a separate issue, as though it were
one more thing to add on. It should be central to all modern
education. When I talked about using a variety of instructional
methods, I didn't specifically talk about class websites, WebQuests,
clicker systems, Smartboards, etc. because OF COURSE using those
resources was a part of offering my students as much choice and
variety as possible, and that *is* what I said I wanted to do. When I
talked about assessing through the use of portfolios, research
papers, and presentations (among other methods), I didn't specify
whether those portfolios would be binders or an electronic version,
if those papers would be researched using books or online journals,
or if those presentations would use PowerPoint or a posterboard,
because I didn't know which tools my students and I would have
available.
So,
then I asked myself some more questions: Do I consider the use of
educational technology to be essential? Not exactly ... students have
not completely lost the ability to learn by traditional means. In
fact, many uses of technology are substantially equivalent to
traditional methods. I don't think it really matters if students read
from a textbook or a website if they are reading the same
information. I don't think it matters if they do an online journal
search or dust off a card catalog, either. But... Do I consider the
use of technology to be beneficial to modern education? Yes,
unreservedly. Technology makes education more accessible and more
interactive. It gives teachers more options for differentiation, and
it can (but doesn't always) make learning more fun. All of these
factors contribute to a higher quality of education. Basically, I
took it as a given that teachers should make use of as many resources
as possible, both technological and traditional, and I still feel the
same way now.
