SWOT ANALYSIS

Running Head: SWOT ANALYSIS

SWOT Analysis

Lindsey Innes

Holy Names University

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths:
I have been teaching elementary-aged students for six years, and I
truly love working with children and in education. A strength I bring to
this course is that I am able to see a piece of technology through the
lens of my students: what would be enticing? What would be beneficial
to their learning? What might be some of the pitfalls? Northrop and
Killeen (2013) created a framework for using iPads to practice and
reinforce early literacy skills, but the model requires that teachers first
teach the concept without the technology (p. 533). My approach to
technology in the classroom has so far been similar to that of Northrop
and Killeen: use technology as a way for students to practice and
reinforce the skills that they have already learned from a teacher.
An advantage to using technology in the classroom is that apps
often have a means for tracking a students progress. A strength I
have is an ability to read and analyze student data whether that is
their performance on certain tasks, assessment data, or simply their
usage information. Using assessment to track student progress is
crucial in determining which students have mastered a concept, and
which students are still struggling. Once teachers have this
assessment information, they are better able to differentiate their
teaching in the classroom. Technology provides an opportunity for
differentiation that has never been possible before. I recognize that
this aspect of technology is invaluable; even a good teacher can only

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work with one student or one group of students at a time. Using

assessment data and technology, I have the capability to design
activities in which students are working in their Zone of Proximal
Development (Vygotsky, 1978) and practicing skills they have learned
but not mastered, and I am teaching a student or group a skill that
they are unable to practice independently. As a classroom teacher, I
strive to incorporate lots of small group work, and technology creates a
level of individualization that is exciting and unprecedented in the
world of education.
Weaknesses:
Technology provides a wonderful opportunity in education; it
allows students to thrive that might not have been so successful in
traditional, old-school methods of teaching. Ironically, my success in
primary and secondary education sometimes makes it challenging for
me to think outside the box. Visual learning, analysis, and memory
are all strengths of mine, which made it very easy to succeed in most
school subjects. Only when subjects, such as organic chemistry,
started to require different skills or ways of thinking, did I run into
trouble. Educational technology is presented in a variety of ways, and
some of these ways are unfamiliar to me. The Hour of Code is an
annual, global event that happens in December, and my school has
participated for the past two years. For First Graders this year, the app
we used for coding was Scratch, Jr. This app is an example of an

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unfamiliar visual layout, and something that I struggle to work with.

There are no directions, only symbols and characters, so trial and error
is the only way I can find to learn how to play. Because I am not used
to not understanding things quickly, I have less resiliency and I lose
motivation very quickly.
Another weakness I bring to this course is my lack of experience
with students who have mild or moderate disabilities. I have only
taught in general education classrooms, with students who are
motivated to learn and have a strong foundation of skills from previous
years in school (whether that is Kindergarten or Preschool). I
previously described my ability to view educational technology from
the perspective of my students, but these are students with no
disabilities or possibly a mild learning disability, such as dyslexia.
Educational technology is so exciting partly due to the possibilities it
holds for students in the margins. These students often have
difficulties learning in the general education setting, or through
traditional methods of teaching. Technology can provide multiple
means of representation, engagement, and demonstration of learning
for students. For this reason, and for the purposes of this course, I
should be thinking of these students first when examining educational
technology. Without experience in special education, though, this is
not always my first reaction.
Opportunities:

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As a teacher in a private school, I have a bounty of opportunities

available through school resources. We have a generous budget for
teacher professional development and a technology department that is
collaborative in helping us learn about, and purchase, technology that
we are excited about incorporating into our teaching. Last year, we
hired a Director of Technology and Innovation as part of our schools
goal to grow our capacity and knowledge of technology and the
opportunities it provides our students. He is an experienced teacher
and cares deeply about using technology to better educate students,
not just use cool, new gadgets. With his expertise, I am able to
consider many different apps and educational tools to more effectively
teach my students.
I see a lot of opportunity for student differentiation through
educational technology in my classroom. Huang et al. (2012)
demonstrated that using interactive e-books provide multiple
opportunities for differentiation. As a teacher, I have always provided
a leveled classroom library, so that students are reading at a Just Right
Level (not too easy or too difficult). Even with books at multiple levels,
it is challenging to conference with every student as often as I would
like. With e-books, some of the progress monitoring can be
accomplished while students are reading independently. Huang et al.
(2012) describe this new ability: we can timely examine individual
learning differences among students through mining their personalized

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learning portfolios and then guide their learning properly during the
learning process according to the results of adaptive testing (p. 718).
Threats:
Through technology, information is now available in a way that
most people never imagined. Through my phone, I can learn about the
weather in Turkey or the flight status of an incoming flight from Austin,
Texas. While this wealth of information is useful in many ways, it can
also feel very difficult to navigate and find the information that is most
helpful, or most true. How do I learn about the most effective
technology to teach problem solving for First Graders? Sorting through
the vast amount of information on the internet is a daunting task.
Even if I find a potential resource, it is difficult to evaluate how
successful this tool or app has been. Research has been the traditional
way to evaluate the efficacy of a program, curriculum or pedagogy, but
technology is moving far too quickly for research to keep up with
everything. Therefore, I find myself being very wary towards pursuing
new technology, because it is often very difficult to know if it is going
to be effective for my students learning.
Another threat that I recognize is my internal hesitation towards
literacy instruction through technology. There is something special
about reading time in my classroom; I am deeply committed to the
Reading Workshop approach, because I feel that inspiring children to
see themselves as readers and find joy in their abilities is the best way

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for children to become life-long readers. I also recognize that I teach in

a general education classroom, where there are only a few students
who are struggling to learn to read. However, I believe that reading
skills should be taught independently of technology skills. Students
should not have to focus on whether or not the screen is lit correctly, or
if they have something set to their Just Right Reading Level, or how to
turn the page on an e-book, while they are also trying to learn the vital
skill of reading words. The opposite could be true as well; if students
are able to navigate an app successfully, it may appear they
understand more text or story content than they actually do. Many
education researchers, such as Laura Northrop and Erin Killeen, argue
that just because a student may be technologically capable of using
the app doesnt necessarily ensure that he or she understands the
literacy content in the app (Northrop & Killeen, 2013, p. 532).

References
Northrop, L. & Killeen, E. (2013). A framework for using iPads to build
early
literacy skills. The Reading Teacher, 66(7), 531-537.

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Vygotsky, L.S. 1978. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher

Psychological
Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Huang, Y., Liang, T., Su, Y., & Chen, N. (2012). Empowering personalized
learning with an interactive e-book learning system for
elementary school students. Education Technology Research &
Development, 60. 703-722.