A new question for everybody - What is technology integration?

Excellent question, Karen. To me, technology integration is a way of ensuring necessary technology skills get taught in context as a means to an educational end, rather than simply as an end in themselves.

Take care!

Edited by author 11-15-2007 07:08 PM
You are right on Bill!

Technology is no longer an "extra," a reward for those who finish their "real" work early or toy for those days before breaks.

Technology is no longer even a tool that we use for those special projects.

Technology is an essential part of accessing information, making sense of information, and communicating in the modern world. We had all better get used to the idea that IT is here and it is going to stay (in reality it is going to be replaced with even fancier IT... but you get the idea).

I think "technology integration" has been bandied about for the last decade (probably the term became widely used after the original NETS-S), and I think it has been around so long that it is becoming meaningless because so many have used to to describe such desperate activities.

David Jonassen captured it best in his concept of MindTools. Here is a link to a site I put together a few years ago for some teachers in a summer institute that explains my take on MindTools: http://www.taconic-learning.net/activities...ls/introduction.htm

Here is an image I adapted from Jonassen which gets to the essential aspects of technology integration: student control, generating ideas rather than simply presenting ideas, and active engagement.
<IMG SRC="http://www.taconic-learning.net/nelmstech/graph.jpg">

Jonassen, D. (2000). Computers as mindtools for schools: engaging critical thinking (2nd ed). Columbus, OH: Prentice-Hall.

Wow! Gary, thank you for all of the information. I need some time to digest it all before I comment on it. In the meantime, I have some followup questions: How do we go about integrating technology into the educational system? Who should be responsible for implementation?

I am becoming increasingly convinced it is the school leaders' responsibility to integrate technology. Sure teachers are the individuals who must do the work of designing and implementing the learning environments, but school leaders have the responsibility of (a) ensuring teachers have the technology stuff they need, (b) ensuring teachers are aware of the emerging capacity of the stuff, and (c) pressuring teachers to use technology to create engaging learning environments.

-- GLA

Gary, I have thought a while about your comment, and drawing on my own school's experience, I definitely agree with you. Since I've been at my school, tech fortunes have risen and fallen with each Head depending on their perspective. That said, I also suspect that over time, you can build a culture within a school that perpetuates creative and appropriate use of technology. My own school has had many tech ups and downs with different Heads, so I haven't seen this firsthand. But if one can build and maintain an ongoing school culture of, say, honesty and respect for others, why not a culture of using up-to-date technology equipment and practices to engage students in their learning?

Great point Bill... so we (teachers especially as we tend to stay at a school longer than students and leaders) have an important role to ensure the level of technology integration stays at a high level. Makes perfect sense.

So, this makes me think that the culture will assume the role of technology leader as the leaders change. The new leader comes in and decides to refocus instruction away from technology-based collaboration and the culture responds, "no way."

How cool would that be?!?

-- GLA

The problem is that the culture needs to be built from the top down. Pockets of teachers doing wonderful things with technology are not enough to change an entire district and the culture really needs to be district wide for the students to benefit. The students that have those special teachers are the lucky ones, everyone else gets left behind.

I see your point, Karen. But I've also seen (and granted, I work in an independent school and so may not understand district life) teachers work wonders in schools where they may not always have the support they need and deserve. Or, alternatively, leadership is stable enough for long enough that the culture is built and then becomes permanent. So I think there is at least the possibility of hope.

Over the summer I heard the phrase "pressure and support" to describe effective leadership in educational technology... the idea is that leaders must "force" the issue of using technology (while providing the technology and other resources necessary to ensure the stuff stays functional).

Seems to me like Bill is suggesting teachers who are effective users can be models and the leaders' job is to make sure those effective practices do not stay pockets, but become school wide.

-- GLA

Sometimes technology integrates itself within a school. Our school recently adopted digital portfolio as an assessment tool for our students. Every discipline is involved in entering student artifacts into portfolios and teachers are actively using technology to work with students toward that end. As a by-product, teachers see what others are doing and this leads to collaboration. I agree that leadership with this starts at the top and there is a learning curve for all involved but once started it can take on a life of its own.

Michael,

I would like to learn more about how your school was able to get every discipline involved in entering student artifacts into portfolios. We are in the process of implementing portfolios, but all the work is being done by the tech ed teachers.

Bill,

I like your point as well. I know the Concord, NH school district has a group of teachers that are being given a lot of technology training. They are then supposed to go back to their respective schools and train the other teachers. They are referred to as technology coaches. I have heard that this program is being well accepted by the teachers in the district.

Teachers on each grade level team received portfolio technology training during scheduled weekly team meeting time. Additionally, students received portfolio training throughout the school year during computer classes. The portfolio is web based and very user friendly. During the first year, students were required to enter only one artifact for each discipline and content area teachers determined whether or not an artifact was portfolio worthy. Most students were able to meet the minimum requirements and the only problem area was math because of the nature of the artifacts produced. Math students use scanners to copy work into a web friendly format.