For this post, I will be commenting on the article "Plugging In: What Technology Brings to the English/Language Arts Classroom" by Sara Kajder. Kajder begins the article by noting that technology should never be used to teach students; it cannot replace a teacher. Instead technology should be used as a tool to aid understanding. She explains the three "nonnegotiable" questions that she asks before introducing new technology in her classroom: "How does the task at hand help to empower my middle school students to be powerful communicators, rich thinkers, and compelling writers?" "How does this technology allow us to ‘do it better?" and "Is this task a rigorous complement or alternative to existing curriculum?” (Kajder, 7). If the answer to any of these questions is "No," she explains, then she does not use the technology in the classroom. However, on many occasions, Kajder has found technology to be a wonderful compliment to her existing curriculum, especially in the forms of web blogs, online collaborative projects, interactive tools, and digital video tools. She points out that teachers should not assume that students know everything about technology and reiterates that teachers should not use technology in the classroom unless there is a clear benefit to be gained (and of course if any of the three questions cannot be answered in the affirmative). The case that she gives as an example is her seventh-grade Language Arts classroom and students who range from "tech-savv[y] to the most hesitant" (Kajder, 8). She discusses the above mentioned activities that the students completed with technology and how much it benefited her students.
I felt that this article was very informative. The class that Kajder depicts is far more realistic than many people assume; it is easier to believe that all students today are tech-savvy than it is to try to teach them basic computer skills. The projects that she discusses, which include the Favorite Poem Project, Poetry Forge, web blogs, and iMovie, all seem very much related to the content area and actually inspired my to use some of these tools as well. I feel that these projects would have all scored fairly high on the chart of Transparent Integration and were more transparent than opaque.
As I mentioned, I would love to use similar resources in my own classes. If Kajder evaluated these sites and tools on her three point question system and found none of them lacking, I have to assume that they would be decently effective in an English/Language Arts classroom. I am not afraid to use technology in my classroom if the benefits outweigh the negatives, and the ideas that she presents for teaching poetry seem as though they would really help motivate reluctant poets to learn.
Kajder, Sara. "Plugging In: What Technology Brings to the English/Language Arts Classroom." Voices from the Middle 11.3 (2006): 6 - 9. Web. 19 Nov. 2011.
I think the three questions to ask yourself serves as a great guide to whether technology is integrated transparently or not. Based on the importance of transparent integration, I think all teachers should use a system like this to ensure that students are not just asked to do something with technology, but rather they are working with technology.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to see a researcher that accepts the digital divide instead of ignoring it completely. Sometimes it seems that many of the articles we read about technology being used in the classroom diminish the reality of some schools. I also liked the projects she implements when I looked at the article! Great research article!
ReplyDeleteIts great that this researcher understands the diversity in technology education within a classroom. That is one critique I would say for most of the technology based studies, the assumption that every student who was born in or after the "digital native" era is a digital native.
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