Kaiya West TE 886 Technology in Education Philosophy

Using Technology Responsibly As a language arts teacher at the secondary level, my perception of technologys impact on my current and future students; as well as how students use its advancements to research, learn, interact, and express themselves is somewhat conflicted. I am not fully convinced students at the secondary level are fully aware of how the internet, media, social networks, and various other technology outlets affect them, their ideas and beliefs, and even actions on a daily basis. On other hand, I am convinced my students know far more about what is available to them in terms of programs, skills, apps, and websites than I do. Technology is a double-edged sword that exposes these preteens and young adults to an immense array of information information that may or may not be suitable, reliable, valid, or necessary; however our students are required to incessantly evaluate what they encounter while using technology. The core beliefs of my technology philosophy in education are focused around the idea of evaluation and responsibility. Students must master the skills necessary to accurately, effectively, and appropriately evaluate the use of and content technology offers in terms of its reliability, validity, and usefulness. Mastery of this skill is not only fundamental to my philosophy, but the Nebraska Department of Education has also deemed evaluation as a Multiple Literacy skill that should be met by all high school students prior to graduation (LA 12.4.1). In reality, our students use these multiple literacy skills daily. For example, if a student needs background information or asks a question that seems to have an indefinite answer, it is easy to say Oh, I will Google that, and what was once unknown is at their fingertips. They collaborate with other students simultaneously with Google Docs, Facebook messaging, or by Tweeting what is going

on in their lives; in addition, they are exposed to the societal, political, religious, and cultural beliefs of close friends and family, but also those people they have never met and may never know. With all of these outside influences, I find it necessary as one of the teachers assigned to teaching the evaluation of information, I have a responsibility to address reliability and validity of what is found not only through Google or Bing, but on social media sites, school and internet library databases, and various websites. Currently, I address validity and reliability of websites with all students grades 7-12 at some point throughout the course of the year. In seventh grade, they are given an interactive evaluating website activity that focus on purpose, authors intent, bias, and design. They follow links to websites about acid rain, the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, protecting endangered species, and genetic testing. After evaluating each site, they fill out a chart on each website according to the criteria discussed earlier in the lesson. The kids have fun with the ones that are fake and actually learn some information from the others. As eighth graders, students complete several projects that require outside informational research that must be evaluated, organized, and synthesized into brochures, Power Points, and multi-genre projects. Juniors are required to synthesize a researched term paper from not only print sources, but reliable websites, as well as several peer-reviewed articles from journals available on the schools library database. Finally, as seniors, students are required to research trade texts and evaluate them for information necessary to apply to various forms of business communications. In several cases, students are exposed to several blogs, posts, and comments about their topics, and we then discuss the reliability of the web now that so many sources and sites allow for comments from any reader or user.

In addition to evaluating information spread through technology, my philosophy includes teachers responsibly using technology as a supplement for lessons. On the first day of class, we were asked to look at The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology. I found the first habit, asking why, to be the most important. Using technology for the sake of using technology should not be the sole reason to use a particular tool or program. As the visual described, technology should be used to make our lives easier, faster, more organized, or help students learn better. It is important that we do not simply place students in front of a screen with no human interaction; but rather, use technology to help teach students new skills and processes in addition to exposing them to a new way to use technology. As a teacher who desires to add more technological elements to my classroom, I hope to learn and experiment will different tools that allow students to take an active role in their education through individual, group, and wholeclass collaborations, projects, and presentations. I also hope to expose them to unique and innovative ways technology can simplify, improve, and accentuate various tasks they are required to perform every day. In terms of education, exposing students to technology and how to use it, and use it responsibly are vital to any classroom in order to successfully prepare students to intelligently and accurately evaluate their world. However, technology should never replace the studentteacher relationship, but rather serve as a method of motivation, reaching a diverse classroom of minds, and adding a little something more to the process of consuming knowledge and information.