Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Vignette Analysis #2
Camille Maydonik
36428084
Vignette #6, "How does a whole school move towards integrating technology"
introduces us to a situation that many, if not all, schools have or will face. Many school
boards are championing 21st Century learning by infusing learning technologies in the
daily school experience. Educators and students alike are embracing these digital
share in the responsibility for the success of their own education, provide alternative
ways in which to teach and learn, assist educators in delivering instruction and assessing
learning, enable educators to tailor instruction to individual learners and present choice in
professional learning. That being said, Jacobsen & Goldman (2001) state, "Teachers are
expectations in an educational status quo that often limits how technologies are deployed
in schools" (p. 85). Oftentimes, one person is responsible for the deployment of learning
require to make the necessary changes to their pedagogy. This is the case in vignette #6,
however the Educational Technology department head in charge of the change process
attempts to balance equitable distribution of the new computers so that as many students
as possible are able to benefit. Upon reflection of the implementation, the Educational
Technology department head comes to the realization that many of the decisions made
were of a collaborative nature, while other decisions were made following a top-down
approach.
Through the creation of a committee, the lead of this change process addressed
the level of technology knowledge of the staff, teachers' interests and the vision of the
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administration. However, in this vignette, it is stated that the teachers who participated in
the committee focused on their own technology ideals without considering what other
members of the faculty required. In this case, it would have been beneficial to survey the
whole faculty to gather baseline data to understand the teachers' initial ideas around
adapting their pedagogy to the integration of technology in their teaching. The baseline
data may have uncovered other possibilities in order to address the barriers and
challenges to the full integration of technology. I would argue that since this situation
occurred in a secondary school, that the student voice should have been included on the
committee as well. By considering the role that students play in deciding how
technologies are used, the final rollout of the computers may have looked very different.
By establishing how the students would like to use the computers, more possibilities may
have emerged. Young people (students, learners) have a new way of looking at the
world, and presently, there is a fundamental mismatch, in some cases, between teachers,
their pedagogy, and their students. Learning is changing. We are relying more on
technology and the networks that learners create to access knowledge that exists outside
of the individual. By involving students in the process, "they are learning how to
participate in a learning and thinking culture, one that encourages them to make things
with their hands and heads" (Jacobsen & Goldman, 2001, p. 95).
assessment. Jacobsen & Goldman (2001) explain: "educators need to evaluate the quality
of the new knowledge and representations that students produce, and communicate new
expectations with parents" (p. 108). Before this can happen, however, professional
development must occur to enable teachers to design learning activities that will afford
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students the opportunity to create and produce meaningful content, rather than just
learning how to run computer applications. In order to best integrate technology into the
and to assess how technology can be used to bridge the content and the pedagogy.
Reference
Jacobsen, D. M., & Goldman, R. (2001). The hand-made's tail: A novel approach to