Nicole Starke on SMIE
Can I let my current students tell you what they think? (HA! That’s if we actually let them into Facebook in class!)
I would like to add more later but start out by saying that I think there’s a role for all types of technology in the classroom, but it’s all about your purpose for using it within a lesson. If you can find a way to get students to move past the “glitter” of the technology (for example, Facebook) and to see instead the power of the technology (i.e., connecting a person with people one may never actually come in contact with if the technology were unavailable), then it serves a purpose.
The biggest problem with using social media in the classroom is that currently, the students know more than the most of the teachers.Y our average classroom teacher (math, social studies, etc.) may or may not even be aware of social media…and isn’t going to stumble over to try and teach a lesson using it for fear that their students will do something they aren’t supposed to…
Mmm…I don’t think it’s laziness.
I think it’s two-fold. First and foremost is the time factor. In most other jobs, if you need to do something directly related to your job (like training), you are generally given time to do that while you are on the job. However, there are very few districts that offer the same time allowance to teachers. Some districts will find subs for their teachers while they go to training during the school day; many (most?) make teachers attend training on their own time. Which is challenging. So professional development staffers are forced to offer training to teachers at inopportune times (before school, lunch, prep periods)…which sometimes leaves teachers either feeling rushed about what they learned, or resentful about having to learn it during that crunched time.
Number two is fear. I think fear about learning something new, fear about not understanding it (the technology) like they understand their current subject matter, and fear that if they try to use it in front of their class and something goes wrong, they won’t know how to fix it and will no longer be perceived as an expert/leader, etc.
The biggest problem I have with this aspect is really with the educational training at the post-secondary level. There are not enough colleges and universities that are requiring mandatory technology courses to their education students. It is starting to change; but there should be a much harder push for technology curriculum throughout the entire four-year process for teachers getting their certifications. If they learned it then, they would be comfortable throughout and be much more likely to transfer those experiences to their own classroom environments…
I assume this will eventually be forced to change as the current generation grows up?
You have to also consider one more thing…availability of technology. There are still a large percentages of classroom that do not have easy, reliable access to technology. When I say easy I mean they can have it whenever they want it (i.e. a dedicated classroom computer) and reliable meaning the equipment is regularly serviced and updated, and access to the Internet is guaranteed a large percentage of time. I think a HUGE fear for teachers who do anything on the Internet are mainly concerned that they will plan an entire lesson involving the technology, only to have the technology fail at the exact moment of the lesson, or the Internet to be down. That really, really stresses a teacher out and puts a kink in the flow of a lesson (and the management of the classroom as a whole).
