Elements of Educational Technology

Elements of Educational Technology

As my responsibility for the introduction and integration of educational technology at my school has grown, my awareness of the scope of the issues involved has also grown. We tend, as classroom teachers, to only think within the confines of our class or our department.  When we try to expand our ideas and experience beyond our classroom, we can find blocks that, without having the experience to deal with them, can stop our plans in their tracks and leave us frustrated.

I have felt this frustration over the last five years and, as I commented in the task document, have changed my thinking with regards to what is most important. When teaching ethical considerations of science in my Biology classes or topics such as global warming or even plants, I have found my students, many being Chemistry students, aren't terribly enthusiastic. I have noticed that part of this lack of enthusiasm has come from their teachers! As a result I have done my best to present these lessons in the most interesting way I can. I am ethically bound to do this and as the years have gone by, my students have come to appreciate these areas of Biology as opposed to finding them boring and "not real science!"

While it would seem obvious that the learning is most important, this task has reminded  me to look at the bigger picture. I am ethically bound to present educational technology in such a way that learning, its facilitation, the user's performances, the other teachers' ability to use the technology,  etc. are all considered important. To do this, I need to research and to study.