Blog 10 - Balance
I began this series of blogs by posing the question: How can I implement innovative technology in my classroom in an effective way, ensuring it is a good servant, rather than a bad master?
As is so often the case, the answer to my inquiry is probably best summed up with the concept of balance. Babies and bathwater can co-exist. One doesn't need to exist without the other.
Technology is here to stay, and I've learned through my research, readings, and conversing with my peers, that if used appropriately and meaningfully, it can be a fantastic classroom tool.
Yes, there will be challenges. Finding and applying innovative uses of technology isn't just going to happen. It's going to require me to put more effort into staying up to date with new possibilities - no more directing the periodic 'Tech Committee' emails to the trash bin without even reading them! It will mean I'll need to collaborate more with my peers, and devote more time to learning how to operate the really neat programs they're utilizing in their classrooms. But if I learned anything from my forced (by COVID) foray into Google tools, it was totally worth the initial growing pains and steep learning curve.
Meaningful use. That's another key learning that I'm taking with me. We complain about parents using screens as baby-sitters - but in the classroom sometimes we're tempted to do that very thing! We get tired. We need a break. Screens can be such great pacifiers. But in order for technology use to be worthwhile, it needs to be meaningful. Purposeful. Authentic. By keeping that mantra at the forefront of my mind, I'll be better able to filter the amount of time and the types of technology use that our classroom allows.
And understanding balance means that it's okay not to use it all the time. The fact is, students need to develop decent penmanship, and 'pencil' isn't a swear word! Once you teach them the rules, card games and board games can be just as engaging for students, and they provide an opportunity to develop social skills and critical thinking skills in ways that technology just can't.
In Technology and Teaching: Finding a Balance, Andrew Marcinek says "teaching students how to balance technology usage along with offline socializing and interpersonal skills is essential", but neglecting to develop digital literacy in our schools "not only lets our students down, but also negates the mission statements emblazoned on the walls of our schools" (Marcinek, 2014).
I think that the final paragraph of Marcinek's article perfectly summarizes what this inquiry has taught me:
"Before we rush to judgment on technology integration as another sweeping phase in education, we should focus on finding a healthy balance for integrating technology in our respective classrooms. Ignore the clutter of overzealous edtech enthusiasts and find your focus to design your own instruction. Ultimately it's not about how many apps we integrate, but about providing our students with the best access and opportunities to contemporary learning resources. As educators, we must prepare our students for their future, not ours"(Marcinek, 2014).
Thanks for joining me on my journey!
Dan
References:
Marcinek, A. (2014, March 11). Technology and teaching: Finding a balance. Edutopia. Retrieved July 29, 2022, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/technology-and-teaching-finding-balance-andrew-marcinek
Hi Dan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting read! I agree with you that we need to find a balance for technology use in our classrooms. Last year, I was hired to work at a brand new STEM school where I thought that technology needed to be integrated into the classroom every single day. Just like in your post, some days I felt like technology was simply babysitting the students, but I needed to use it! About half way through the year, I realized that I did not need to use technology every class period. Instead, I returned to art projects, writing by hand and more. My students were still engaged because these off screen tasks were meaningful to their learning! This experience was a huge learning curve for me, but one that I will not forget.
I have enjoyed reading your blog posts,
Megan
Hi Megan,
DeleteThanks for your thoughts. Yep, technology as a babysitter isn't good at all, even though we know it's tempting when we're exhausted and frazzled, and we know things will dull down to a simmer if we open up the magic screens of flashing lights... My goal for the upcoming year is to keep technology a great servant - which it really can be!
Hi Dan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking me along on this journey of discovering balance with technology. I know that I struggle with throwing the baby out with a bath water sometimes. It can be easy to lose sight of the positives of technology when media is reminding us about how damaging it can be to wellness. I also agree with your reflection that technology is a great tool when not used as a baby sitter. We as teachers struggle just as much with this as parents and you have definitely inspired me to throw some board games into the mix this coming school year.
Amanda
Hooray for board games! Might I recommend you get the kids playing Yahtzee? You can download the score sheets, show the kids how to play via the 'Fishbowl' approach, and voila! I was surprised that so many kids kind of knew how to play it already, and it was amazing seeing them interact face-to-face while practicing their math and strategy skills!
DeleteHi Dan,
DeleteThanks for sharing your thoughts in this final reflection!
I think the conclusions you've come to are fantastic. Similar to life, when working with technology I agree that we certainly need balance. I appreciated the comment you made about it being meaningful and purposeful in the classroom as well. I have certainly lost sight of this in the past and reading your posts has reminded me of the importance of this. I'm in agreement that board games are a great tool to help achieve balance as well (I find Cribbage to be a great one to help teach numeracy skills).
All the best,
- Jordan
A colleague also teaches the students Cribbage. In fact, for ADST they make their own cribbage board!
DeleteThanks,
Dan
Hi Dan,
ReplyDeleteFirst off, you have a Tech Committee? Cool! Is that within your school, or within the district? I feel like we have something kind of similar at the district level, but it's more like coordinators who offer us workshops on different apps, assistive tools, etc.
I appreciated your discussion as an educator, and do agree that these considerations around balance are important for us to consider as teachers and as parents. You mentioned how we, as teachers, should ensure our use of technology is meaningful and connected to our curriculum (or, have pedagogical value). Agreed. I think this speaks to a broader point about modelling. And how important it is for us to (always) be modelling that which we preach. And, like, if we tell kids to put their phones away, ours should be in our bags/ purses, too.
I feel like balance, in all its forms (be it tech, work-life, activities at different levels of Bloom's taxonomy) is something that is so easy to pendulum-swing in one direction (to use that as a verb) that we really have to be conscious. Maybe that's just me.
Thanks for your post!
Kaitlin
Oh dear... you pricked my conscience with reference to keeping my phone away and setting a good example. I actually only got a SmartPhone a couple years ago, and I used to frown at people who lived on their phones... until the addiction hit me!
DeleteGood points about balance, and pedagogical value.
Thanks,
Dan
Dan, I appreciate how you write that technology in the classroom “needs to be meaningful. Purposeful. Authentic”. It is one thing to give students a piece of technology but unless they are given a purpose or instructions to follow-up on, it is basically useless! It will probably just be used to play games or watch weird videos, haha. I believe that learning in general must be meaningful, purposeful and authentic or else what are students getting out of being in classrooms with us anyways? I love using technology to further enhance a subject. I like to engage with technology by briefly addressing a learning topic and then getting my students to research about the topic to answer any questions they have or had and then have a discussion as a class at the end. I believe that balance between always being on and using technology and never incorporating technology helps students understand that it is a resource to enhance knowledge rather than it basically being the teacher. Balance is key!
ReplyDeleteHi Laura,
DeleteI agree with your conclusions and appreciate your thoughts. This year I was on leave for a few months and had a first year teacher as a teaching partner for several months. Although she was 4 or 5 years older than me (I'm 43), she was quite intent on bringing technology and innovative practices into our shared classroom. Evidently her teacher mentor/host was pretty cutting edge, and she introduced a lot of neat ideas. However, when it came down to it, students at my school have a hard time with self-regulation and are pretty tough to handle, so she ended up paring things back from her grandiose ideas for technology integration, and bringing things back to some pretty traditional teaching methods. I guess my conclusion is that you have to find what works for your students, and sometimes that's less tech, more old-school approaches. That said, many of the fresh ideas she brought were great, and in the right context, I'm going to use them!
Dan