EDUC 649 Technology Final

EDUC 649 Final Paper1

EDUC 649 Final PaperAndrew J. Lepore

Chapman University

I very vividly remember my elementary and middle school technology classes. We had a

state of the art computer lab, and by that I mean it was the 90s and we had a computer lab. The

majority of our class time was spent doing typing exercises that helped a miner find treasure. It


was the early days of commercial internet and we were all excited to learn all the fun acronyms

like “LAN” and “WWW.” These were the days when you went to Yahoo! or Ask Jeeves to find

things out. These were the days when various internet providers sent out CD’s with trial offers to

use their internet service. Today, most of those companies don’t even exist anymore. The entire

technological landscape has changed. Today “cloud computing” has all but gotten rid of the need

to have programs physically installed on computers. Today, the average middle schooler’s phone

has more processing power than all the computers at my middle school put together. With such

rapid growth, it’s a wonder anyone can keep up with it all -- particularly schools. In some ways,

the difficulty is not even from a hardware perspective. Granted teachers and schools need more

access to the physical technological tools, but once they have them there is an endless sea of

virtual tools to be sifted through, many of which are up and running one day and are down the

next and another takes its place. In this paper, I will talk about the merits of including technology

in the classroom and which tools lend themselves particularly well to the classroom, as well the

dangers and my concerns with including technology in the classroom and which tools I feel are

least suited to a school environment.

I will immediately state that my position is fairly biased. I am a huge tech junkie,

and in fact I just built the computer I am typing this essay on. I am a huge believer in integrating

technology into the classroom and believe that technology and specifically the internet has

changed and will continue to change the landscape of education drastically. Furthermore, I

believe this change can be hugely beneficial to our students, our country, and the world. We no

longer live in a world where school needs to be about learning facts and information that can

later be recalled either for general knowledge or for a career. All of this information can be found

in some form on the internet. In fact, the greatest skill anyone can have now is the ability to


quickly find the needed information and discern between the half a dozen (or half a million)

sources and formats to find the one that is most accurate and best fits the desired application of

that information. With that in mind, imagine a classroom that is less about providing these facts

and information, and instead presents complex ideas and problems that require the student to use

all the resources available to find the facts and information that will aid them in solving the

problem. This is not at all a new idea. In fact this is really just building off the extensive research

driven projects teachers have been doing for decades. Now, however, the long-term extensive

research project is becoming obsolete. With so much information so readily available, no one in

the job world or in any kind of research expect gathering information to take very long. Teachers

can further aid and guide these kinds of projects with tools such as Google Custom Search. By

limiting search parameters to certain areas the teacher can slowly help the student build up the

discernment required for full-blown web-based research. Similarly, while I’m not particularly

fond of sites like Pageflakes, iGoogle, and Portaportal, their ability to organize links for students

to go through to get information is certainly beneficial to this type of learning. However, without

getting too much into it just yet, I think tools like these are really more of single web pages and I

believe a teacher and their class would be better served by having a website that the teacher can

be updated with new topics, links, and custom searches. One of the biggest reasons I believe

class web sites have a distinct advantage over several independent web pages is consolidation.

While ultimately the students will be cast out into the massive expanse of the internet with no

food or water, at young ages they still need structure and predictability. By having one place

where the students can always go to get to what they need this structure will be in place.

Furthermore, the class website acts as a central hub, like Union Station, from which point the

students can jump off into the world wide web -- and if they get lost, there is a place to return to.


If that isn’t enough of a reason, there is also the very appealing fact that a great many of the

useful web-based tools can be easily embedded into the web-site. There are a ton of options for

building a website from free tools to full blown paid for software. However, for educators the

WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) format is going to be the most duplicatable. Even as

someone who can code HTML and CSS, I still prefer the WYSIWYG over having to hand code

everything for educational purposes. Learning to code by hand can definitely be beneficial and

allows a great deal of control over the final product, and sometimes the limited functionality of

WYSIWYG only editors like Apple’s iWeb or web-based tools like Wix and Google Sites can

be frustrating. However, if the goal is to create dynamic web-sites that are being constantly

updated for various projects and assignments, hand coding is just not practical. There are

certainly some tools like Adobe’s Dreamweaver or CoffeeCup (a personal favorite) that combine

the HTML editor style with the WYSIWYG style for those who like to look under the hood a

little more. It should be noted, that any web-based website builder can, by its nature, only be

worked on while with an internet connection.

As I mentioned before, websites allow for the inclusion of a variety of other web-based

tools that have incredible online applications. The popular web-based presentation creator, Prezi,

can be embedded directly into a website with a snippet of HTML code Prezi provides. This can

allow the instructor to provide access to any presentations they gave in class along with any other

information about the lesson, addendums, or corresponding assignments directly in the class

website. I’m a big fan of keeping things in one place as much as possible. I much prefer being

able to embed a YouTube video to sending the students a link to YouTube, especially since it can

be easy for the students to get distracted once on the actual YouTube site. Another tool (that is

easily embeddable) I was surprised to find I really like. The tool, VoiceThread, essentially allows


the user to create a slideshow that can be commented on in a wide variety of formats such as text,

voice, and video. This is a great collaborative format for the students to view each other’s work

and let it create discussions. It may also prove to put an emphasis on creating presentations that

provoke thought rather than recite facts.

A final tool that I feel is highly beneficial is Google Docs. First off, the fact that it

is a free tool for students who might not be able to afford Microsoft Office and might not know

about OpenOffice, it’s great. There are definitely some advantages and disadvantages to it when

compared to the industry standard, Microsoft Office. The fact that it web-based and auto-saved

online constantly means papers won’t ever “get lost,” and it allows for easy collaboration which

is a nice advantage. The collaboration possibilities are not just between students either, but can

be a way for the teacher to provide feedback and see revisions and help during the entire process.

That beings said, Microsoft’s SkyDrive also solves this problem -- though of course, you also

have to shell out the dough for their software. Microsoft Office also has much more powerful

formatting tools, but at the same time, are they really that necessary? In some cases, yes. For

example, this paper is being written using Google Docs and if I wanted to adhere to strict APA

guidelines I should have a different header on the title page then the rest of the pages, which

Google Docs does not have the functionality for. Aside from pretty specific things, however,

most formatting things it does not include (such as more specific font sizing) is not really

necessary. One big advantage to Google Docs is that if I have to teach how to do something to

my students I don’t have to account for Microsoft Office for Windows and Mac and OpenOffice

and Google Docs. Hopefully, the day is coming where there is no danger in expecting all

students to have internet connection. At that point, I would most likely recommend that all

students use it for class work.


To move into some of my concerns with technology I have to bring up social networking

sites. I have very mixed feelings about using social networking in the classroom -- I am not all

out opposed to it, but I am very skeptical. Naturally, the first sites that come to mind are

Facebook and Twitter and Google+ (if it ever gets out of the ghost town phase). There are other

social networks with more of an education focus such as Edmodo; and Facebook is currently in

the process of making it more education friendly. The more commercial social networks like

Facebook and Twitter have a problem in that they are too commercial, too uncontrollable, too

public. It may seem silly, but I also feel like in some ways, trying to adapt Facebook to using it

in school looks like too desperate an attempt by educators to meet the students at their level.

Personally, I think sometimes the point of education is not to meet them at their level to try to

push them up to a new level but to reach down a hand and raise them up to a new level.

Particularly with Facebook, I just don’t know that there is anything you can do with it that you

can’t accomplish elsewhere. If the goal is to encourage scholarly discussion in a format and with

a medium they already use socially, I just honestly cannot see the students accepting school

taking something they love and trying to make it educational. On the other side of the coin, there

is something like Edmodo, which is very obviously modeled after Facebook but designed for

educational settings with increased functionality for teachers like online tests and grades. I think

that Edmodo can be effective if the entire school commits to using it. Not for it to primarily be a

social networking tool, but rather a tool for teachers and students to disseminate information,

give quizzes, post grades, and have the added bonus of a social network. I think trying to market

it as a social network is going to just make kids wonder why they would bother to check Edmodo

when all their friends are on Facebook. Another big social network is Twitter, and, admittedly, I

think this has the most potential for classroom use. I surprised myself and actually really vibed


on the video where the teacher had the students “tweet” (cringe) their reactions to videos and

images. It could definitely be a great way to have everyone’s involvement in some way, and

going back and reading through any that went by too fast in class will help the teacher gauge

where each student is at without having to find a way to put them on the spot in class. Most kids

are also more comfortable writing something before they say it, and there is the possibility that

the confidence that comes from writing it can transfer to the student speaking up more in class.

There is the definite drawback, however, that all students will need access to technology and a

Twitter account, which all parents may not be pleased with. Regardless of the medium, I think

the best way, for now, to use them would be to simply post a thought provoking question or

quote (perhaps not even directly pertaining to a specific subject area) and then step back. I’m

sure students would love to see what kinds of things their teachers are posting and after a while

students may look forward to your posts and the discussions they have with each other about it.

This then allows the social network to take on an educational focus naturally, rather than trying

to impose one upon it.

The common question associated with technology and education is “how much should

we integrate technology?” To which I would answer, “As much as possible.” The next question

is, undoubtedly, “How can I integrate technology without detracting from what I am already

doing?” I certainly do not mean this unkind, and I know it is certainly the challenge, but I truly

believe the biggest challenge we are facing now, the biggest question we need to ask ourselves

is, “Is what I am already doing relevant in a 21st Century world?” This can either be terribly

daunting, or terribly exciting. To be fair, there is still a great deal that is relevant. However, one

of the criticisms of American education is the focus on breadth over depth. What if instead of

spending so much on the basics so that we can have time to touch on everything, we get deep.


We tell the moving stories of men and women throughout history who overcame great adversity;

we give a play by play of some of the more insignificant but more interesting events in history;

we get into the nitty gritty and the drama of just how Kepler came to his laws of planetary

motion; and let the students, using the tools we give them, take their excitement about the detail

they have now learned and find the surface level information themselves. By allowing them

opportunities to seek out the information they need and want and collaborate with others to get

the end result they want, we better prepare them for life in an increasingly more technological

and more connected world. To anyone who says there is no place for technology in the

classroom, or who thinks it should not be used any more than it already is, all I can say is, I do

not see how it can be avoided. It is pretty universally accepted that addition and subtraction are

necessary. The need to add and subtract is everywhere in life. To deny the prevalence of

technology and therefore the need to understand it and how to use it is to refuse to teach students

something as important to their existence in the 21st Century as addition and subtraction. Using

technology in the classroom is, in my opinion, not even a question anymore. The question is only

how to use it.

Documents

EDUC 649 Technology Final