Jones, Beau Fly, Gilbert Valdez, Jeri Nowakowski, and Claudette Rasmussen. "Plugging in: Choosing and using educational technology." North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (1995): p. 1-64. Report.
Jones, Valdez, Nowakowski, and Rasmussen released this report to provide decision makers with tools to use while judging and purchasing educational technology. The authors make it clear that technology used in the classroom must enhance student performance or else it should not be used. By realizing the impact that technology would have on education, they showed impressive foresight given that this report was released in 1995. While some of the technologies that were on the horizon at the time this report was created are no longer considered cutting-edge, the ideas and evaluation tools presented still provide valuable insight for today’s teachers, administrators, and technology specialists.
As a continuation of the authors’ work presented in the 1994 report titled “Designing Learning and Technology for Educational Reform,” the focus on using new means to measure students’ success aside from standardized tests continues to be an area that is emphasized. Assessing students’ “skills that are useful only in school” is detrimental to each individual student as well as society as a whole (Jones 12). Also, the authors continue to stress the importance of using technology to provide students with engaging, authentic learning challenges. The age of each student being a “passive learner” while the teacher assumes the role of “information giver” needs to end in order for students to be prepared to succeed in today’s world.
The development of the authors’ indicators of high performance technology from the 1994 report continues in this report. Without a clear set of indicators, selecting technology using the available resources will be a bit of a gamble. The key areas they identified when judging the level of performance of technology were access, operability, organization, engagability, ease of use, and functionality (Jones 22). While these six indicators are certainly helpful to assess technology resources, the scores given to the equipment or software being judged could vary significantly based on who is doing the evaluation. For example, when determining the functionality of a software package, an administrator may be looking for one particular feature that the software does well while a teacher may place a higher importance on a different feature that the software struggles to incorporate. Despite these possible discrepancies while assessing technology, the authors’ continued development of these indicators further aides in the ongoing quest to provide our students with technology that will help them reach their potential.
The authors’ first suggested step in the technology evaluation process is to “compare your current practices and future goals” (Jones 29). By completing two tables, schools will get an idea of where they currently stand and what they hope to achieve by acquiring new technologies. The report’s step-by-step explanation of how to graph the data recorded in the tables helps teachers and administrators make a clear determination of their current realities and future direction. The next step in assessing technology involves completing two tables that determine how well a program engages learners and whether the program is low or high performance technology. Again, teachers and administrators make sense of the information by organizing it into a graph to determine which quadrant the technology belongs based on its performance and student engagement. These initial tables and graphs help teachers and administrators become more objective in the beginning steps of the technology evaluation process.
One key component to improve the effectiveness of this technology implementation plan is clearly defining the learning goals that will be achieved by using the new technology. Without setting goals, it will be difficult to judge how the new technology impacts student learning. Once goals have been set, the desired trajectory from the current quadrant to the desired quadrant will be determined. The trajectory will help the teachers and administrators determine “what technologies can move learners toward these goals” (Jones 41). With clear goals and a desired trajectory selected, technology that will meet these needs can be evaluated, purchased, and implemented.
In order for this technology evaluation plan to work effectively, many other factors must also be addressed. The primary focus of better engaging our learners must be paramount. Also, the authors stress the need for schools to “move toward distributed networks, as opposed to central source providers, in order to build communities of learners that include students and teachers as contributors” (Jones 62). At the time of this report, the collaborative possibilities available on the Internet were extremely limited. Today, using tools such as wikis, blogs, discussion boards, and online course management systems can help achieve this goal of enhanced collaboration. Also, while technology tools can be used to better engage students, they can also go underutilized without a commitment to provide ongoing professional development for teachers. The technological landscape in education is advancing so quickly that professional development must be given just as much emphasis as acquiring new classroom technologies. Oftentimes, districts would be better off maximizing the effectiveness of their existing technology by providing substantial professional development as opposed to spending those resources on purchasing new technology tools.
No comments:
Post a Comment