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Sloane A. Houston Instructor: Malcolm Campbell English 1102 28 March 2012

Education 2.0: Merging Interest

Entering college for the first time I was completely unaware of what to expect. I didnt know the campus environment, the atmosphere of the classroom or what to expect from college instructors. During my first week I was introduced to a lot of different teaching styles, most of which were unfamiliar to me. Each of my professors taught differently and each classroom environment was different. One professor taught everything by the book and used no technology in his classroom.no PowerPoint slides and not even notes projected on the overhead projector. He also didnt like using email so he told us the best way to get in contact with him was to go directly to his office. Another professor used a lot of technology. He taught with PowerPoint, used clickers during the classroom instruction, placed homework assignments online through Moodle and he answered emails within one day. In a majority of my classes we used the combination of both books and technology. I was introduced to Moodle, a Course Management System (CMS). Moodle is a free web application that teachers use to organize and create an effective learning site (Welcome to the Moodle community). Using Moodle helps professors to get information out to students and also lets students get in contact with other students. This is just one example of the many tools that technology can offer a teacher to better the way they instruct their students.

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I am one of those students who cannot just sit in class and learn from reading a book. I have to do something or use something that will be interactive with what is being taught. Web 2.0 and other technology tools can help to do this. I enjoy surfing the internet, or using other tools that technology offers me. They hold both my attention and interest making me focus on what I am learning. The tools of technology need to be incorporated into the class room. My experience with college has made me really think about the way I learn and how I absorb information. I think that is why I decided to research and find out information about why merging education and technological tools together makes teaching easier and more effective for the teachers and the students. As stated by Reggie Kwan and his co-authors of Enhancing Learning Through Technology: Research on Emerging Technologies and Pedagogies, we live in a world of constantly emerging new technologies that challenge the field of education while at the same time present exciting opportunities (Kwan et al. 1). The advancing technology is developing into more powerful and sophisticated applications. This gives educators the opportunity to explore different ways of teaching and designing instruction (Glenn 12). This being said, why are some teachers reluctant to incorporate technology in their teaching styles? Most fear that with technology so easily at a students finger tips they are more likely to cheat or use it for help. Rosa Porpora was interviewed for Growing Up Online, a Frontline episode that aired on PBS stations in 2009 and explored the generation born into a digital age with the internet being well established along with other forms of technology. She has been an English teacher for 30 years. She believes that the traditional way of teaching is still relevant and feels that the internet affects the ability to learn and the achievements of a student. Porpora teaches at Chatham High School, which is full of teachers who either incorporate

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technology or decided to teach strictly by the book, with books. In her interview, Porpora was asked when she first noticed the internet had changed the way of learning. Porpora said that the realization hit her when she realized that as a teacher she was taking a risk by assigning a paper outside of the class, which was then open to the world; that what I received in class may not necessarily be what the student could do. She, like some other teachers, believes that there is a reliability issue and that you have to take into consideration a question of trust. There are some teachers who believe that a students credibility can be taken into question because of the use of technology in completing homework. There are also some teachers who believe the opposite, like Steve Maher a social studies teacher of 11 years, and another teacher interviewed for the Frontline episode Steve Maher, a fellow teacher at Chatham High School, has a different outlook on technology. He believes his role as a teacher is to prepare his students for the digital age of today. In Mahers interview he was asked how technology helps him to teach. He said that technology helps him to teach in a more efficiently, which helps him and his students. He talks about how teachers who are still using the conventional way of teaching are losing a students attention before they even grab it. To have the least media-rich time of their day to be the time when theyre supposed to be engaged and involved with learning seems a lot like a crime, because you have these tools out there and they could be used easily (Maher). He was then asked about cheating and if he thinks it is as big of a risk as his colleagues make it to be. He stated that cheating is a concern because it is easier now with technology; however, he feels that as a teacher you can either react in two ways. You can either fight against it or accept that cheating is something that will probably happen. Im not saying that cheating is OK, Im saying that cheating is something you have to look at closer to say what is cheating and

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what is not (Maher). Not all teachers are going to have the same view as Maher; however, they do need to take in to consideration that there are ways to cheat more easily now but there are also ways of teaching around cheating. According to Allen D. Glenn and Linda R. Knapp, professors who focus on are teaching and researching on the use of technology to instruct a classroom and also co-authors of the book Restructuring Schools with Technology, with the emerging technologies, rethinking the way teachers teach is a must. When technology is used appropriately, it can help teachers (and students as well) restructure how a classroom can be organized and the way the curriculum is prepared (Glenn 12-13). Teachers need to rethink the conventional way of teaching into a more 21st century way of thinking. The conventional way of technology was the old school pencil, paper and lecture method of teaching which gave students the basic skills, concepts and generalizations. The 21st century way of teaching would be using a variety of technologies that will assist learners in the creation of knowledge and more than the basic skills. Many forms of technology can support research, analysis, problem-solve and communication processes. These methods are seen to be more effective than the conventional method. When technology is incorporated into an effective curriculum, it restructures the way the student learns and the teacher teaches the material. In the educational research done by Lynne Schrum, a professor for elementary and secondary education whose research focuses on technology in education, and Gwen Solomon, a director of website called Technology and Learning, stated that blogs, podcasts, and wikis are three most commonly used technology tools used (Schrum and Solomon 55). A blog contains text, images, and links all organized for the viewer. It all makes it easy for students and teachers to form a discussion on the page. Blogging is known as a new way for people to express

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themselves. In the educational sense, Schrum and Solomon believe that blogs can be used for writing about issues, learning from peers, thinking about topic thoroughly enough to comment and add their own opinion with peer editing. The skills that come from using a blog, teaches the student to be more confident in sharing what they know and learned with their peers, teachers and parents. In my English class last semester I was given the assignment to create a blog. We were assigned to organize our works throughout the course on our site. We had our peers go online and help us by viewing and editing how accessible and organized our information was on the site. At the end of the semester creating the site was both helpful for us, as students, and our professor because it was a site that she could visit and all our work was there. She didnt have to keep referring back to papers but just by a simple click she was there. A podcast is a way of sharing multimedia files like videos or speeches over the internet (Schrum and Solomon 57). The podcasts connection to education is that the students are able to watch videos from their teachers, in which they can deliver information or instructions (57). It also gives the students the ability to go back and re-listen to the information as many times as they need. YouTube is a great example of how people deliver information and instruction through video media. YouTube has millions of instructional videos for students to look at, ranging in all different subjects and areas. Just by searching how-to ___ in your search engine, you can find help and answers to any question. Youtube allows others to share their knowledge with others through the technological tool of videos.

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Wikis are web pages that allow multiple users to collaborate with each other using their own input on writing (Schrum and Solomon 58). It allows the students to add, edit or change anything that is on the page. Teachers can use wiki pages to collaborate with their students on documents by editing or reviewing their work (58). Although it is limited to just word documents the pages allow the students and teachers to have a way of communication outside of the classroom. Schrum and Solomon say that all of these tools (blogs, wikis, and podcasts) allow students to have a voice and get involved in global conversations. They also say that these types of global conversations are known as digital storytelling and have become the most powerful 21 st century learning process that is available to students and teachers (43). There are many more tools out there for teacher to use in order to better reach their students interest and make educating easier. Listening to Student Voices on Technology: Todays Tech-Savvy Students Are Stick in Text-Dominated Schools is a 2005 report that looked into the students attitudes and behaviors about using technology for learning (Schrum and Solomon 32). The results showed that technology is important to a students education and that students desire in-school access and want to use technology to learn in a variety of ways (32). The whole point of the survey was to highlight what students want the adults who influence education policies to know how they feel about technology and how schools can better meet their needs (32). According to Allen D. Glenn and Linda R. Knapp, throughout history, schools have helped citizens prepare for the future (Glenn 13). Being in the 21 st century, our school systems must rethink how they prepare the next generation. Todays educational goals focus on

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standardized tests and accountability (Schrum and Solomon 41). Students are taught the information they need to pass a standardized test but not necessarily given the thinking tools to reason through the test. We are now in a society where more technology is being used in and incorporated into our everyday life, so why not incorporate it into the way we learn. In the interview with Steve Maher, he was asked what his students are going to be doing in twenty years. He simply answered he doesnt know. If you listen to the Department of Education, they'll say that seven of the top 10 jobs in the year 2010 didn't exist in 2004. So we're preparing our kids for industries that don't exist yet, and we're preparing for kids to use technologies that haven't been invented yet (Maher). Maher further talks about how teachers need to teach more skills instead of content. He talks about how learning skills makes the student more flexible, which is what they will need in the work place. The skills he talks about can be taught and learned from the use of Web 2.0 tools in the classroom. If we are teaching for the future, why not use all the tools accessible to us to make things more interesting for both the students and more organized for the teachers. Merging interest and learning is a great way to broaden a students mind. When you take something that a student is passionate about, like technology, and then something that they may not have any passion about, like school, you can create something in which can spark a students attention. Merging the two turns the conventional education strategies into new school education 2.0 strategies. Changing the way one teaches is a challenge (Glenn 216). Teachers become comfortable with their style of teaching. In order to stop complacence, as students, we must voice what we believe helps us to better understand and get involved with what is being taught. We teach them, just as much as they teach us. In this train of thought, learning is a continuous and ever revolving

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process, it is also a give and take exchange between those being taught and those doing the teaching.