Reflections

As I reflect on my learning in my recent Education, Technology, and Society course, I realize that I have learned many things that will help me as an online teacher and in my post-graduate career in Education. I will outline here some of the key takeaways that I have learned from this course.

The most challenging assignment that I grew from was the Pecha Kucha video. Previous to this course, I had never heard of a Pecha Kucha presentation. However, I attended the Pecha Kucha night in El Paso and was able to see the presentation in action. There were many interesting topics presented at the Pecha Kucha night, and I saw the main challenge with all of them was timing. Some of the Pecha Kucha’s had exact timing, and others were off on their timing. After seeing the Pecha Kucha in action, I was able to conceptualize how to design my presentation. For me, the timing was the biggest challenge in creating the Pecha Kucha. I spent a lot of time cutting my presentation to fit into the time restraints. It was also hard because it was difficult for me to keep my speech fluid. I stumbled in many parts of the recording. Each stumble took seconds away from the presentation. However, I felt deep satisfaction after I completed the Pecha Kucha presentation. I see the power of this short presentation; its visual effects combined with concise compacted research really aids in capturing the audience’s attention. Pecha Kucha’s are more interesting presentation devices than traditional PowerPoint presentations as presenters slides are often boring, the listener loses attention, and is also frustrated when the PowerPoint presenter reverts to slide reading. The Pecha Kucha was a very important takeaway from this course.

I also learned about different technology tools to use in the classroom to maximize learning. I appreciate the strategies that Pacansky-Brock (2013) delivered in her book and video, as well as the different tools that my classmates shared throughout the course. I specifically appreciated learning not only what the tool was, but how Pacansky-Brock (2013) and my classmates use the tool and its effectiveness in the classroom. It’s important not to be technocentric, to use technology for technology sake. “It’s not the tool you use with a student that makes the difference: it’s what you do with the tool. It’s what you accomplish. It’s the learning that it triggers…(Tools) are nothing without the guidance, support, and imagination of a teacher” (Johnson, 2011). I have already started using web meetings with my online classes and have noticed that my student engagement scores, which are measured by a metric, have increased. I currently use some video announcements in my course, mainly as an introduction to the course, but I plan to implement more regular video announcements versus the written announcements that I currently use to see if this will increase engagement scores even more. I also will be trying some other new interactive tools in my classroom that I learned about in this course to help increase engagement and meet my students learning needs. Some of these tools include blogs, vlogs, screencasting, Symbaloo, video email, Skype, and Voki, as well as several other apps that aid the learning process. These tools will help me to add more of a human touch to my online classes.

Another thing I learned is to not discard traditional “old” technology, such as PowerPoint. One of my colleagues shared how she uses PowerPoint with her students. I had considered PowerPoint to be a “doldrum” tool and prefer to use Prezi or other interactive presentation tools. However, seeing how the students created PowerPoint videos with voiceover, uses PowerPoint as a powerful multimedia tool. Students have the freedom to create and use PowerPoint to share with other students, and by adding the voiceover component, this tool can be used online as well. Their peers can also be critics, which makes it even more dialogic. In Marc Prensky's (2010) book Teaching Digital Natives, he discusses teaching with nouns (the tools students use to learn to do, or practice) and verbs (the skills that students need to learn, practice, and master). In this colleague’s example, PowerPoint is a tool (noun) for presenting (verb). Prensky (2010) has a long list of noun-verb technological pairs. I plan to copy this list of noun-verb technological pairs and use it more diligently in teaching my courses.

I learned from another classmate how to make assignments more participatory. Asking students to answer a prompt with only pictures is a very powerful assignment that I want to try with my students. Taking away the words and only portraying ideas and concepts with pictures is a way of really listening to students and seeing their unique perspective of the world. It also gives teachers insights into how students are learning. My classmate asked his students what they wanted for the future of their education. This is a true example of listening to your students, understanding their passions, and then teaching to their passions and desires. It is an example of Prensky’s (2010) pedagogical principle of partnering and guiding students in their learning.

Finally, Horn and Staker’s (2015) concept of disruptive innovation caught my attention. Horn and Staker (2015) discuss disruptive innovation in Blended and bringing disruptive innovations to non-consumers as an initial inroad to infiltrating the mainstream market with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the monolithic factory model of education. The authors advocate for disruptive innovation and state that we need a student-centric model that focuses on individual student needs to replace the monolithic factory model of education that has served this country for decades. A student-centric, blended learning model is needed for our current technology-centric economy. Some common differences among learners that call for this student-centric model include: 1) We all learn at different paces; 2) We all bring different levels of background knowledge to learning experiences; and 3) We all have different aptitudes, or memory capacities, the amount of information we can absorb and work with in our mind. Learning about disruptive innovation has sparked my interest in reading Christensen’s (2011) book The Innovator’s Dilemma.

References

Christensen, C. (2011). The innovator’s dilemma: The revolutionary book that will change the way you do business. HarperBusiness.

Horn, M. B., & Staker, H. (2015). Blended: Using disruptive innovation to improve schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Johnson, S. (2011). Digital tools for teaching: 30 e-tools for collaborating, creating, and publishing across the curriculum. Gainesville, FL: Maupin House Publishing, Inc.

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2013). Best practices for teaching with emerging technologies. New York, NY: Rutledge.

Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, CA:   Corwin.