Support and leadership in the implementation of technology in the classroom are absolutely essential to success. Early on in my MATLT program, this was not something I understood or gave much thought to when I designed learning activities. I was focused solely on how technology could improve upon a lesson and engage students. In this redesign, for example, I have students creating a project using a podcast, instead of simply writing an essay. This is a dynamic and exciting assignment, yet I made the decision to do it without considering the supports and leadership necessary to make it a successful learning outcome. The redesign takes these aspects into consideration, and makes the original assignment more complete, granting it a greater chance at success.
Supporting Learning and Leadership
with Technology
Introduction
Using technology in the support of
learning is a philosophy and approach that requires strong support and strong
leadership. It isn’t enough to just implement the technology and tell students
to use it. There must be active steps taken to determine things like who has
access to the necessary technology, provide training and other supports,
assessing effectiveness and student response, and implementing any changes to
improve its use. In the classroom, this position of leadership and support is
the role of the instructor, but it also a position held by administrators to
support the teacher’s activities. Without support and leadership, successful
change and technology integration would not be possible.
Original
Activity: EDU 648 Podcast
This
assignment was about incorporating technology. In this case, taking a
straightforward essay, and making that essay into a podcast. This gives
students an opportunity to be more creative, learn a new technology, and use
devices such as their mobile phones or iPods in a classroom setting. This will
immediately present to them as much more interesting than a pen and paper
writing assignment could be. Assignment: Create a podcast discussing the powerful movements that transformed European
society during the early modern era. Briefly describe the origin of each, and
how it affected society as a whole. Feel free to be creative in how you do
this. For example, you could set the podcast up as a series of interviews with
fictional characters representative of the movements and the society of the
time. Or, you could present the podcast as though you are a student of
sociology and archeology, presenting your findings after studying the period in
question. Your podcast must be at least three minutes in length, and no longer
than five.
Students
should be presented with the necessary resources to accomplish this task.
Fortunately, the technology to do this is widely available, and easily
accessible from any reasonably new computer, or even using a cell phone or iPod
(the free Cinch app), or the internet (http://www.podomatic.com/). Many
software solutions are available to make the process simple as well as fun.
Students should be encouraged to post their podcast online, either via a blog,
Facebook, or even a school intranet site. Sharing their work, either with the
class or online “motivates students to do their best work – their most
creative, planned, and precise work” (Scragg, 2008).
Podcasting
is a technology particularly suited to the classroom. Both because it is
readily available, and now widely known and understood, and because it offers
students a way to be heard. Those who may be intimidated by speaking personally
in front of the class, for example, will find it easier to record their voice
privately and share it through technology. Teachers may find it difficult to
motivate students to write, but by using another form of communication, they
can encourage writing through multiple inspirations. Students will still need
to write the content they are recording, but the form of the presentation will
be their focus, not the dreaded essay. By publishing it online, they reach a
potentially huge audience, another motivating factor. “One of the most basic
and powerful ways to increase student motivation to write and communicate is to
change student perceptions of audience” (Fryer, 2005). Students love social
networking, sharing pieces of their lives with the global online world.
Podcasting gives them the opportunity to share their academic achievements the
same way, garnering feedback from potentially anyone, anywhere, and not just
their instructor or classroom peers.
Podcasting
also has the benefit of appealing to many of Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences.
It could, through creative application, likely appeal to all of them. However,
with this particular assignment, it easily appeals to linguistic intelligence,
musical intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, interpersonal
intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and existential intelligence (State
of the Art, 1997). That is six out of the nine different intelligences! That is
incorporating many different learning styles into one assignment, undoubtedly a
huge benefit to learning.
While
there are other technologies that could easily be applied to this assignment,
podcasting seemed the most natural choice. It takes students out of their
traditional learning space, and puts a new spin on the sort of assignment many
might otherwise find boring or difficult. It allows them the freedom to be as
analytical, or creative with their responses as they like, and it appeals this
generations’ mentality, which is very focused on social networking such as
Facebook. Many of them may be unfamiliar with how to podcast, but by doing this
assignment they will not only be learning about early modern European society,
they will also be learning a new technology skill that they can utilize in the
future, either for social applications, or academic, or business as they move
from school into the job market. Preparing students for how to use technology
in the world is just as important as teaching them a curriculum. It also lends
itself to communication literacy (Fryer, 2005). Literacy has moved beyond
simple words on a page, and now encompasses a much wider field. Students need
to become proficient at not only reading and writing, but also communication
styles such as e-mailing, blogging, and yes, podcasting.
There
are sure to be challenges whenever adopting something new into the classroom.
Students may need to access the technology to complete their assignment in
different ways. One might prefer using a class computer, while another is more
comfortable creating their assignment with their mobile phone. As a teacher, it
is important to be able to help all students access the information and
technology. It is sure to need multiple classes to complete, which takes up
valuable class time. It will be important to have a clear plan and guide, with
steps and time allocated for each. However, the benefits of engaging,
motivating, and learning far outweigh the challenges associated with this
assignment.
Activity
Redesign: 697
When I created this activity, I was very
focused on how accessible and fun students would find podcasting, as opposed to
more traditional essay writing. I did have the understanding that necessary
resources would need to be provided to the students, and that one advantage of
this technology approach was the wide accessibility of the any ways students
could accomplish the assignment. These are both excellent things to keep in
mind from a leadership perspective, however, my redesign would focus on other
things as well. For example, while students could choose many different
technology devices to use (computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc), what
supports and training would they have in how to accomplish this? My original
assignment sort of assumes they will figure it out via the provided resources
or their own familiarity, however it would be much improved if I provided a
class lesson on how to accomplish the podcast, allowing students the chance to
try the process in a group setting where they could seek support from both
myself and their peers. Those who struggled with the necessary steps could get
their questions answered and the support they needed before trying to do the
assignment on their own.
Additionally, my original assignment
assumes that all students will have access to devices to allow them to
accomplish the podcast, but this may not be the case. A good way of solving
this would be to identify those who don’t readily have available technology to
create a podcast, and either provide them with a classroom computer or other
device to do so, or perhaps pair students up to accomplish their podcasts as
collaborative efforts.
Also in support of leadership in
technology, I should assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the activity,
both while it is happening, and after the assignment is completed. It would
give valuable feedback for future improvements, or redesign.
Challenges
This assignment was challenging for me
on a number of levels. Many of my previously designed assignments have already
been redesigned, or did not provide a complete enough picture for me to use to
take a new approach here. However, I did eventually decide on one that seemed
both complete enough to look at for a redesign effort, and one that could
definitely use some improvement from a support and leadership perspective. As
with the previous redesigns, I feel that all of my previous learning activities
could benefit from a second look like this, focusing on one or more of the
learning outcome principles. In this case, no matter how great the learning
opportunity might seem by incorporating technology, without the necessary
leadership and support, it is far less likely to be effective and successful.
Conclusion
An
instructor’s role goes so far beyond simply communicating necessary
information. In today’s classroom, we are innovators and change leaders, taking
education to a place it has never had the opportunity to go before. The
classrooms we attended did not differ much from those of our parents or
grandparents, but we have the opportunity to make our lesson plans and learning
activities truly innovative and exciting. However, this requires the necessary leadership
and supports as well as choosing the right technology for the right learning
activity and group of students. One of the best things teachers can do to aid
in this is to communicate with one another and offer support and collaboration
on successful technology implementation.
References
Fryer, W. (2005). Classroom Audio
Podcasting. Tools for the TEKS:
Integrating Technology in the Classroom. Retrieved from
http://www.wtvi.com/teks/05_06_articles/classroom-audio-podcasting.html.
Scragg, S. (2008). Using Podcasts in
the Classroom. EdTechie: Resources for
Teachers. Retrieved from
http://edtechie.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/by-sandy-scragg/.
State of the Art (Producer). (1997).
Big thinkers: Howard
Gardner on multiple intelligences [Video file]. Edutopia. Retrieved from
http://www.edutopia.org/multiple-intelligences-howard-gardner-video.
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