Briana Allen's Professional Portfolio-Educational Philosophy

Technology is an integral part of our daily lives, creeping into even the most mundane tasks. As such, it is important, as an educator, to embrace the transformative power of technology in order to collaborate with students and the world. Current technologies provide students and teachers with limitless resources for scientific exploration, historical discovery, expression of thoughts and ideas with instant local and world-wide feedback, along with cultural perspectives from students around the world, among other new and unknown possibilities.

Over the past decade many schools have put a significant amount of money into technology based on the idea that the “presence of technology in schools will enhance student learning and achievement.” (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000) Unfortunately, technology alone has not had the impact many had hoped instead much of it has been underutilized. To achieve the ideal results the educational system needs to shift focus from technology skills to technology as an education tool while providing teachers with opportunities to learn and use technology in the desired manner.

For technology to be truly useful in education teachers need to see where it is most applicable to their core content rather than focusing on technology skills. This means that teachers need to know their curriculum deeply enough to identify when technology will improve learning and understanding. Intentionality and content centrality are identified by Elizabeth Ashburn as concepts vital to the utilization of technology to promote meaningful learning. She suggests that teachers need to define what they want students to know when designing learning activities in order to promote meaningful learning (Ashburn, 2006). When it comes to content Ashburn (2006) stresses the importance of identifying and focusing on the big ideas to promote learning.

What do these ideas mean for the use of technology in education? By emphasizing learning goals and standards along with the big ideas central to a topic, teachers shift focus from technology for technology’s sake and instead look at how technology can improve learning. For example a teacher trying to explain mitosis can send students to the Cells Alive! web site to view the mitosis animation which includes video of an actual mitosis process. Another teacher may ask students to compare the original draft and subsequent hand-written changes made to President Roosevelt’s address to Congress regarding the attack on Pearl Harbor in order to analyze how word choice affects meaning and the emotion of the message. Yet another may ask students to create a public service announcement to demonstrate what they learned about infectious diseases. In each case the use of technology aids in the understanding of content. Whether providing a glimpse of an event not easily viewed in the classroom, using of a primary source document to analyze a historical event or using technology as an alternative assessment, these uses of technology represent real world applications that promote learning and understanding rather than contrived activities designed to teach skills out of context.

As an educator and technology enthusiast I often see ways in which technology can improve learning and understanding for students. Not every educator is a technology enthusiast and as a result may lack the technological knowledge to identify its best use to facilitate learning. Others may be new teachers or new to a subject or grade and therefore unfamiliar with the curriculum. That is where a technology facilitator or coach would be beneficial to a school.

A technology facilitator or coach can work in collaboration with teachers to identify resources or applications that support their learning goals or a content theme. Through a study of technology coaches and their affects on classroom teacher’s use of technology within the curriculum William Sugar concluded that collaboration between a technology coach and teacher in conjunction with training focused on the teacher’s needs and situation promoted improved technology integration (2005). A technology facilitator can educate teachers on instructional strategies such as inquiry-based lessons which incorporate technology to solve a problem or they can assist teachers in the creation of digital stories as a form of alternative assessment. They also have the opportunity to influence how teachers view technology by providing professional development that models effective technology integration approaches. In doing so, technology facilitators can affect change within the school culture.

Throughout my teaching and studies in the Technology in Education program I have focused on how to collaborate with teachers in order to improve their technology confidence and use. As a result of my classes and studies on technology in education I possess a greater understanding of how and why to utilize technology as a learning tool. Consequently, it is my desire to educate fellow teachers on the opportunities provided by technology to improve and assess students’ learning and understanding of content.