Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Technology Integration
We have read multiple chapters on teaching with technology. Explain what you have learned from reading "Teaching Every Student in the Digital Age." More specifically, share your thoughts on the framework for Universal Design for Learning and the three brain networks involved in learning. Have you read about, heard about, believe in a more relevant theory of learning? How do you see technology as facilitating learning in ways that teaching without technology fails to facilitate?
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This quote from Donna Palley, at the end of chapter 1 sums it up: “The concept of UDL is the intersection where all our initiatives—integrated units, multi-sensory teaching, multiple intelligences, differentiated instruction, use of computers in schools, performance-based assessment, and others—come together.” UDL helps teachers use diversifide learning and to be facilitators rather than lecturers. This seems much more student friendly and effective. UDL uses the Technology is a necessity in these days and students must learn technology skills. The old way of teaching and learning is good, but students who lack the tech skills will never be equipped to get future jobs out of the manual labor field.
This my be very simple but for a student to learn there needs to be as few barriers to that learning as possible. UDL provides multiple avenues to teach a topic so that all learners receive that knowledge without misinterpreting or misunderstanding something because the student might have a disability or simply need a visual rather than an audio method to learn. Technology provides all the resources that can help all types of students to learn. Without technology lessons are flat or catered to only one to two types of learners in the classroom.
Reading about the three learning networks was very interesting to me. I don't know of any other theory of learning that is more relevant. I think that knowing what, how, and why we learn is crucial to effective teaching and learning. Technology is very important. There are many things that can be taught without it, but the entire world is technology oriented, and education can't be any different. Children understand technology and find it interesting. This makes it easier for students who may have had previous learning problems to learn. As was said in class, technology isn't going anywhere. If we want to compete with the world, we have to stay abreast of current technology and use it to our advantage. I am not personally a very technologically inclined, but I do acknowledge that I have to learn. It is our future.
The approach recognizes the importance of the classroom teacher’s approach to the selection and design of curriculum and assessment. The three brain networks suggest that multiple ways of presenting information is necessary. It also suggests that involving students in the learning process means that multiple strategies are needed for students to express themselves as they work. By giving different learning options, students can be motivated to learn and complete assignments. UDL utilizes technology to present information in alternative formats. It allows for flexibility.
Technology is essential in society today. It is going to continue to grow. UDL provides many different teaching strategies, assessment methods, and resources that are useful in teaching in today's society. My content area being Business Education makes technology more essential in teaching students the technology skills that they will need in everyday life. The three learning networks that UDL describes is the most relevant theory that I learned in my educational experience.
The UDL describes the importance of the new way of education and how books, paper, and pencils are now outdated. The PP we watched in class last week was very interesting. The 3 brain research method was really interesting in finding out how we learn and what we learn and why. I beleive in today's society we must become technologically educated just to compete with world. We as teachers must become more proficient in project based and technoloy projects than just simply being a classroom facilitator. We are being required to step up and in many cases step out of the box and teach students in a brand new way so that their minds are opened to new and exciting ideas.
UDL allows the teacher to make the lesson fit the student instead of the student being forced to conform to the lesson. By using multiple ways of getting the subject across, everyone is given the opportunity to learn in a way that is best suited to them. The use of technology is a wonderful way to bring flexibility to the classroom, and also help structure the lesson to the needs of the student. We must embrace technology and use it when it can be the most beneficial and allow it to bring our lessons to life.
Universal Design for Learning has been designed to create flexible and methods and materials to all learners due to the emergance of such rapd developments in technology. As Donna Palley says UBL ..."integrated units, multi-sensory teaching, multiple intelligences, differentiated instruction, use of computers in schools, performance-based assessment, and others..." UBL pulls all of these together making our classrooms better suited for fitting the learning needs of out students in a diverse society. Technology is used to make these aove things possible. Technology is on the rise and we are going to have to deal with it. I do feel that it is the most relevant theory that I have heard of. It is very interesting to read about the three brain networks. I believe the three networks: recognition networks, strategic networksand affective networks, can be applied to all teachers in any subject area. After reading all of this, I believe that I do need to work on my tehnology skills. I didn't feel I was too bad behind in my technology skills until now. Technology is constanly changing as seen by the video we watched in class and it is easy to get behind. I am just going to have to work harder to keep up.
UDL is a method that allows the teacher to reach every student. This method gives each student the opportunity to learn the material in the best way they can. It also strongly incorporates technology. Teaching technology to the students in a great way to reach students with different learning strengths and also imperative in preparing students for the future. Afterall, isn't that what going to school is all about.
Technology can facilitate learning, however, it can also distract from the learning process. The choice of how technology facilitates the learning process remains the teachers choice. Through critical reflections the teacher can decide best on what technology works the best to ensure that students hold on to the enduring questions the teacher intended to teach.
I believe that reaching every student is an important goal and using technology in the classroom is just another way that goal. I believe that by utilizing technology in the classroom every teacher has more access to appealing to the different learning styles of students. I believe that some students can be reached by older methods of teaching, but how many more can be reached if technology is utilized effectively in the classroom.
One of my peers told me that he recently observed a teacher who had given his students an assignment that dealt with utilizing a new kind of software. He was quite shocked, he explained, at the disparity of technological ability between the college-bound classes and the general class.
According to my friend, the college-bound classes, composed mainly of upper-middle-class caucasian students, grasped the concept with no trouble at all and finished their projects in one class period.
The general studies class, which was composed of poorer minority students, had to carry the project over to the next day because none of the students had any background knowledge in technology.
The digital divide, as evidenced by my friend's experience, is real and, despite the great strides made in technology availability in recent years, it is not closing rapidly enough.
Luckily for those students, they were in the hands of a capable teacher with enough technological resources on hand to instruct them in basic computer usage. For many students around the country, however, this is not the case.
When situations such as these arise, I believe it is our job to accomodate fully and immediately for students' lack of computer skills, just as we would for a student with a physical disability.
UDL presents educators with a unique path to diversification. It states that as well as being prepared to instruct the student in the proper use of technology, we should also be prepared to offer individually-tailored assistance to that student based on his or her individual learning pathways, all to the fullest extent of our ability.
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