TQ #3 Cont'd

In “The Role of Technology in teaching and the classroom,” Prensky (2008) offers some puzzling situations that help clarify why technology has not been very successful in helping students to achieve more than research has shown they achieved with technology thus far. One of the puzzling situations mentioned is that teachers are reluctant to learn how to effectively use technology. This is not surprising, given the fact that many teachers who currently teach in our schools have been teaching for a significant amount of time (20+ years) using traditional methods of instruction, and they don’t see why they have to change the way they teach. Furthermore, given the fact that much emphasis is placed on covering mandated curriculum set forth by stated educational departments, curriculum that is a mile long and an inch deep, teachers spend much time planning lessons that do not involve technology because they do not have the time learn how to use the technology that could be effective, and they see their students using technology as wasted, valuable instruction time and, in some cases, teachers use technology solely as motivators. I experienced this type of situation myself this past week in that I felt stress having to spend hours of my days “playing” games on the computer when I could have spent those hours planning lessons for the classes I am expected to teach next week. I struggle with this because although I am a big supporter of using technology in the classroom to enhance learning experiences and students’ higher-order problem-solving skills, most of the teachers with whom I work are not exactly on the same page and view using simulations and technology as a waste of valuable instructional time.
If my students had the chance to use technology more effectively and to view technology as learning tools, most of them would be more motivated and engaged in daily lessons. On the contrary, some of the students with whom I work experience frustrations with technology, especially with fine motor skills such as keyboarding, and they do not handle frustrations well; therefore, what is meant to be a valuable learning experience could turn out to be disastrous in terms of quality instructional time being used. For some of the students with whom I work, unwanted behaviors would escalate and time would have to be spent helping them cope with their anger and frustrations toward technology. This being said, I do believe that most of my students enjoy using technology and would benefit from more technological experiences. Jonassen (2008) presents principles constructed by Gee that support the effectiveness of simulations on students’ higher-order thinking skills. Of most importance to the population of students with whom I work are the Active, Critical Learning Principle, the Practice Principle, the Situated Meaning Principle, the Multimodal Principle, and the Discovery Principle. These principles present the importance of active learning, the importance of engaging learning, the importance of contextualized meaning, the importance of learning using different modalities, and the importance of students making discoveries. My students can experience all of these principles by playing the games I played this past week. For instance, they could make discoveries during the play of Quest Atlantis by figuring out as I did that pressing the escape button allows them access to their mouse again, and they could more effectively participate in contextualized experiences by feeling the effects of the actions they decide to take during problem-solving stages of the Westward Trail.