What is Educational Technology?

After reading through our article for the week and considering how to define Education Technology, I came up with the following:

Instructional Design and Technology is the practice of creating lessons and choosing the best tools to make the lesson as productive as it possibly can be with a given set of students. Those tools we choose from should include: computers, input tools, media of various types, methods of presentation, and other materials that are available for our use.

The only problem I found with the above image is that "tools" appears to be most important, but I believe that students should be the central focus of what we do and the tools should be just that, tools for achieving the best results for our students that we can.

Reflective Blog #1

Writing out the rough draft of my Technology Philosophy has given me a new focus on my use of technology and a renewed focus for my classes this semester and my school once I get my first position as an administrator. I have always been concerned about the students getting the best they can from my classes, but now I can better focus my efforts in attempting to make that happen. In choosing and designing projects for this class, my philosophy will guide me to choose the projects that best fit my philosophy and goals instead of simply grabbing the one that catches my interest at the moment.

In reading November's article "Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning," I found his point #4 to be most interesting and thought provoking. That point is "Don't Do Technology Plans." When I first read that heading, I thought he had lost his mind. After all, isn't that what all this is about: using technology, making technology work, etc. But, as I read through that section of the article, I realized just how valid his point is. It is unfortunate that the people in Washington couldn't catch the validity so easily. Here, November points out that the technology is a tool that is a means of achieving an end. What is important what is done with the technology rather than the technology itself. If we focus on the technology, then we end up Automaters instead of Informaters. If we focus on the information and the communication, and treat the technology as the means instead of the end, we end up as Informaters instead of Automaters. If we become Informaters, we achieve the transformation in education that our changing culture and society make necessary.

What potential uses do I see for blogging? At present, my vision for blogging is growing exponentially. At one time, I looked at it as simply a way to get information out to others. But, truthfully, it could be used for so many purposes in so many fields that it could be treated like a type of social networking that has more controlability in terms of who is involved, who can add and edit, who can see posts and comments, etc.

Keeping in mind the idea that technology is a transformative tool for education, I would suggest considering blogging as a means for students to gain more polished communication skills as suggested in this video:


This needs to be the next phase of education in this country. It is time for our schools to step into the 21st Century and start leading the way instead of always following the trends. If we can find and adapt new technologies before businesses, we will once again become the world's leading superpower, but in terms of knowledge and business rather than simply in terms of military might.

In this class, I expect to learn more about making this type of transformation happen within my classroom and within a school. I expect to learn ways that I may be able to take this transformative power to other schools and eventually to the larger education community beyond my own school.

My Educational Technology Philosophy

In choosing to become an educator, I had many influences both positive and negative. The most influential person that I can recall in my choice to become an educator is my Sophomore English teacher, Mrs. Rosa Treviño. She was always more concerned about the students than the subject. She refused to implement anything that came from above simply because “the boss said so.” She insisted on know how these changes would benefit her students and that it would not take away from her students being able to be successful. In the negative end of the spectrum is a former Freshman Physical Science teacher that I keep in mind as a perfect example of what a teacher should never be or do. I will not name him, for confidentiality’s sake, but will simply give a short description. This person would always be too busy to help a student with a question. His assignments were always the same: “Read the chapter and answer the questions at the end.” His tests were simply reworkings of the questions at the end of the chapter. He had gotten the job and managed to stay in it for about six years because of connections. I recall this person, as I believe everyone should recall their worst educational experience, as a warning post to help me avoid heading in the same direction when things get stressful and it would be so easy to simply rely on the textbook for everything.

In my own educational endeavors, I take some bits from many different philosophies. But, Constructivism and Idealism are my main guiding philosophies in developing lessons and curricula. I like the Constructivist idea of the student developing their own knowledge by use of real-world problems (such as my own experience in Dr. Roberson’s class where we had to use real data from a real school to develop a plan for improvement and growth based on the data we were provided and the research we were able to do about that school and its community) because it gives the student the understanding that they are always seeking about “How am I ever going to use this in ‘real life’?” On the other hand, Idealism’s tenet of a holistic approach is one that I often find myself employing. For example, I have often wondered why we don’t have more integrated curricula where students could learn about writing other subjects in English by doing research on those other subjects and writing research papers using the tenets of good English writing all at the same time.

In my view, technology should be a transforming tool instead of an additive tool. Technology should allow us new ways to work, rather than simply being a new type of hammer to use on the same old methods. As for myself, I believe we should meet the students where they are as much as we possibly can. We should make use of the technologies that they use wherever it is possible to do so without losing sight of our purpose in education. We should not ban any tool that could be useful in the classroom, but we should learn about those tools and their proper and appropriate use in different settings and environments.

I expect my students to leave my classroom/school as lifelong learners who have determined that education is not a chore, but an exceptional avenue to a better life. It is also imperative that those same students understand that education and entertainment are not mutually exclusive. In a world where everything is becoming more and more integrated, it is essential that students understand that change is coming and that we must learn about that change in order to better direct it to the best outcome. In order to do that, we must make as thorough and effective use of new technologies as we possibly can, and to learn about those that we cannot make use of in the classroom. Only in this way can we provide the best possible outcome for our students.

Throughout my life I have been fortunate enough to have an overwhelming number of teachers who want the best for their students and who have taken a special interest in me for one reason or another. It was those teachers that inspired me to become an educator myself and who showed me that there is more to education than simply teaching what is in the book. Every one of those teachers had similar attitudes to my own in terms of using technology in education. We all have seen technology as transformative to one degree or another. None of those teachers who inspired me ever denigrated technology as simply another tool or a waste of time and resources. So, in carrying on the legend of those great educators who came before me, I refuse to take technology for granted or to relegate it to simply another tool that we have to learn to use and incorporate into our old way of doing things.