Reading+One+-+C

Teacher pedagogical beliefs: The final frontier in our quest for technology integration? By Peggy Ertmer.
 * preGroup C **
 * by Melinda, Michelle, Elise, Lisa, Bronwyn, Paul, Jeremy and Alexandra.

Questions:**

//__**What is technology integration?**__//

Techonolgy integration is incorporating technology into the school environment. It supports learning and assists in the metacognition of content. Examples of technology which can be integrated into the learning environment include: -Blogs -Computers -Smartboards -Internet -CD Roms -Wiki's -Webquests (Lisa Caruso 29/05/09)


 * __Why is ICT intergration important? __**

Over last decade, the issue of what constitutes a literate person of the 21st century has been at the forefront of discussions within educational circles. There has been a massive push for contemporary literacy pedagogy to be developed and taught in modern schools, to ensure the ICT proficiency of all children within a 21st century world. Within the modern world, the literate person must be taught how to read and write with multimodality, in order to understand and create meanings from the many semiotic systems that combine to make meaning in texts and in the world. In order to do this effectively, children need to be using ICT in the classroom. Children must be able to interpret “graphics, animations, videos, audio narrations, music, special effects, hyperlinks, search engines and (printed) text” (Labbo, 2006, p.200). They need to be able to access, understand, critique and communicate information, in relation to their purpose and context (The United Kingdom Literacy Association, 2004). In order to be literate in this sense, children require highly developed “new literacy” skills, which enable them to operate effectively in all aspects of the contemporary world. Educational curriculums must be designed to give children the appropriate skills in order be literate consumers of the modern world. Contemporary literacy pedagogy of the 21st century must explicitly teach children the new literacy skills, to allow children access to these new forms of literacy. How this is achieved in schools is through the integration of ICT into the classroom. Children need to be exposed to computer technologies and they need to be taught and be expected to use the internet, word processing skills, blogs, wikis and multimodal ICT programs. (Alexandra Wansey)  I found this vidoe quite interesting about the use of technology in education and think it would be useful when conducting seminars on ICT integration for teachers. 

It seems that the term technology is somewhat relative to how normative its use in any given society is. Once upon a time a blackboard would have been considered an exciting new piece of technology with applications that could change the way people are taught. So too the printing press would have been a technology that opened up education to the masses by allowing many people fairly cheap access to learning texts in a way hitherto impossible before its invention. When I consider that the printing press opened reading up to the masses, and the advent of the blackboard meant teachers could teach larger groups as all the students could direct their focus on the central learning device (the blackboard), it seems that with new technology also comes a certain amount of depersonalisation between teacher and student(s), as the numbers in a learning group swells. Similarly with the internet, larger numbers of students can be taught online, with no physical interaction between teacher and students. I also wonder if, when current ICT like wikis, the internet and smartboards have become as integrated into the classroom as the blackboard or mass produced textbooks, they will even be considered ICT at all, as there will probably be some fandangle new ICT considered to be ‘cutting edge’ technology. This goes back to my assertion about learning apparatus being NEW, rather than normative or commonplace, which deems it to be technology. In this vein I would like to add textbook, blackboard, and tape recorder onto the list of technologies in the classroom. (Jeremy Ward- 05/06/09)
 * __More on TECHNOLOGY!!!!!__**


 * __//Discuss how technology integration can be improved in the classroom?//__****

Technology integration can be included in the classroom by equipping and training teachers with the knowledge and skills in order to use and intergrate technology into the classroom. The majority of teachers now feel that they are prepared to use computers in the classroom (U.S. DOE, 2003 as cited in Ertmer 2005, p 25). This fact means that the use of this technology now becomes the most important factor in its use as more than new toy. The use of technology needs to be moved from retrieval and data collection to the aim of its use being higher order thinking from students. This can only come about from support from the school hierachy to allow teachers to try out new ways of using computers. They must be allowed to fail in their attempts without rancour, otherwise this will not be attempted. As in the introduction of all things this will take some time. The previous survey of teachers comfortable with the use of technology was much lower. Thus training and support is the most important factor in improving technology integration. While teachers are comfortable to use them they will not be comfortable enough that they are more ahead of the content than their students unless they get more training.



Also it is important to provide schools with the means to purchase the variety of technologies available. This statement is self evident. The infrastructure to have proper access to ICT resources by all students is a prereqisite of its integration. It does not preclude that training and support of teachers that is also required. The two factors need to be dual tracked. (Paul Darwell 18.05.09)

There is also the problem of insuring that there are enough IT support staff to help with problems and to ensure that both students and teachers have the back-up and support for issues with hard drives, security, anti-virus controls etc. The teachers shouldn't have to spend all their time responding to IT problems instead of teaching. (Bronwyn Suzuki, 26/05/09) Colours by Bronwyn on 28/05/09)

Adjustsment to colour, layout in font for questions, spacing, and image caption added. - (Lisa Caruso 29/05/09) Pretty impressed with changes Lisa, good job- PD 31.5 Bronwyn still trying to find google doc stuff. Can you resend a mail to me and all the others in the group.