In "Object Lessons: Towards an Educational THeory of Technology", Castell, Bryson and Jenson write: "Take a look, for example, at an online educational environment, "HomeRoom", which claims to house "over 100,000 math and reading questions aligned to all state standards, major classroom textbooks, and specific state and multi-state standardized tests" and which encourages teachers to: "Create customized, skill-specific tests for your students, aligned to state standards or a specific state test" [5]. Rather than re/mediating educators' assessment practices, HomeRoom encourages teachers to recapitulate existing, sedimented practices, such as the 'standardized test', by the use of new tools. Like an endlessly rehearsed mantra, we hear that what is essential for the implementation and integration of technology in the classroom is that teachers should become 'comfortable' using it." I am inclined to believe such a statement. Much of the software that is being put out as being "educational" is really not that at all. Things such as HomeRoom as well as "Math advantage" and "Adaptive Curriculum" are aimed solely at implementing the standard curriculum, when really "educational" software should should be going beyond (sometimes far beyond) the curriculum, encouraging students to critically think about the material presented to them. The authors go on to say "...it is remarkably traditional content that we deliver by computer, on CD-ROM or via the Web, using few of the tools of the computer or the Web beyond their capacities for display and distribution. This is equivalent to using a high end, multicapacity, powerful server for typing practice - another not unfamiliar school-based practice we would never find in any other context. We have to begin to see this as no less ridiculous as using a jackhammer to insert a picture hanger into drywall. From this standpoint we might reconceive teachers who resist technology less as uninformed Luddites and more as the only folks capable of seeing the nakedness of the emperor, and honest enough to say so..." At first I was hesitant to believe this before pausing to think about it. Almost all of the technology-based learning I have encountered in my years of schooling have been essentially that - readings/assignments posted online and/or online chats. So I've got to wonder why it is that there isn't a whole lot of innovative teaching being done with the numerous amounts of new technology coming out all the time? Certainly things like webquests make greater use of the internet, and some to some extent incorporate different types of multimedia, but at the heart of them are they not simply a modernization of the textbook?
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In "Object Lessons: Towards an Educational THeory of Technology", Castell, Bryson and Jenson write: "Take a look, for example, at an online educational environment, "HomeRoom", which claims to house "over 100,000 math and reading questions aligned to all state standards, major classroom textbooks, and specific state and multi-state standardized tests" and which encourages teachers to: "Create customized, skill-specific tests for your students, aligned to state standards or a specific state test" [5]. Rather than re/mediating educators' assessment practices, HomeRoom encourages teachers to recapitulate existing, sedimented practices, such as the 'standardized test', by the use of new tools. Like an endlessly rehearsed mantra, we hear that what is essential for the implementation and integration of technology in the classroom is that teachers should become 'comfortable' using it."
I am inclined to believe such a statement. Much of the software that is being put out as being "educational" is really not that at all. Things such as HomeRoom as well as "Math advantage" and "Adaptive Curriculum" are aimed solely at implementing the standard curriculum, when really "educational" software should should be going beyond (sometimes far beyond) the curriculum, encouraging students to critically think about the material presented to them.
The authors go on to say "...it is remarkably traditional content that we deliver by computer, on CD-ROM or via the Web, using few of the tools of the computer or the Web beyond their capacities for display and distribution. This is equivalent to using a high end, multicapacity, powerful server for typing practice - another not unfamiliar school-based practice we would never find in any other context. We have to begin to see this as no less ridiculous as using a jackhammer to insert a picture hanger into drywall. From this standpoint we might reconceive teachers who resist technology less as uninformed Luddites and more as the only folks capable of seeing the nakedness of the emperor, and honest enough to say so..." At first I was hesitant to believe this before pausing to think about it. Almost all of the technology-based learning I have encountered in my years of schooling have been essentially that - readings/assignments posted online and/or online chats. So I've got to wonder why it is that there isn't a whole lot of innovative teaching being done with the numerous amounts of new technology coming out all the time? Certainly things like webquests make greater use of the internet, and some to some extent incorporate different types of multimedia, but at the heart of them are they not simply a modernization of the textbook?
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