Crystal Pullman's ePortfolio
- ETEC510 Group Project Website * Please note that this is a link to another subdomain, and as such will open in a new window.
I've been on many roadtrips, and inevitable one of the things that happens is passing a place - a diner, a shopping mall, a beach - that you want to explore further. At the time, it occurs to you, but for whatever reason you are unable to stop. Creating this website was a bit like returning to that place. I had stopped and looked around with the ETEC512 project, but there was so much more that we wanted to do and simply didn't get a chance to. This course gave my group the time we needed to stop and take a better look around.
With permission from the professor, we took our group project website from 512 and revamped it. We upgraded the scheme and added countless resources for teachers, including links to tutorials on many technologies and software applications, troubleshooting guides, and links to further resources like templates. After the course, we were satisifed we had done what we could here, and felt free to continue on our own MET roadtrips.
Accessibility is a major issue in many classrooms today, both for the students and the teachers. Much of what I had learned about accessibility up to this point showed me that while the perfect technology for differently abled students may not exist yet, teachers could be doing a lot more with the technology they're given. Gray and Silvery-Pacuilla's article suggests that teachers "need to find ways to implement and adapt the technology for students, to allow them to learn and attain their full potential" (Pullman, 2009). However, in my experience many teachers simply don't know the capabilities of the technology, or how to use it, beyond basic operation. Often schoolboards don't have the time or money to properly train their teachers, or to provide refresher courses every year so, as teachers need to be able to stay on top and to use the technologies effectively.
Many studying this area of education suggest that teachers are more isolated from their colleagues than other professionals, and as a result are not able to expand their learning, their skills, or their practice. The suggested resolution is to develop a community of practice for teachers, and one easy way to do this is do develop a website where teachers can go for answers, share their experiences, and ask others for help when needed. Our website aims to do just this. In an article on the Learning Strategies Group, the authors quote Bereiter and Scardamalia (1993) who, “introduce the notion of a “knowledge-building community” as an educational strategy for “producing a school environment that supports development beyond what comes naturally [and] is what we must discover if we are to educate for expertise” (p. 199).” In this knowledge building community teachers are able to do more, such as:
- [they] share their knowledge;
- [they] support one another in knowledge construction;
- [they] develop a kind of collective expertise that is distinguishable from that of the individual group members;
- [they] develop and engage in progressive discourse;
- [they] demonstrate respect and recognition for peers (Erickson & Brandes, 1998 and Pullman, 2009).
Another major issue has been that when something goes wrong with the technology, as it is apt to do, many teachers don't have the troublshooting skills to solve the problem. They are forced to scrap, or postpone, that lesson, and are much more reluctant to use the technology in future classes.
The goal of this website was to provide basic information to teachers to help them decide which technologies to use and when, how to use those technologies, what no to do, and also to provide links to basic use, and troubleshooting skills.
References:
Erickson, G., & Brandes, G. (1998). Developing and Sustaining a Community of
Enquiry Among Teachers and Teacher-Educators. Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 44, 38. Retrieved December 2, 2008, from http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=390556121&sid=5&Fmt=3&
clientId=6993&RQT=309&VName=PQD
Gray, T., & Silver-Pacuilla, H. (2007). The Future is Now: Application and Innovation of
Technology in Special Education. Journal of Special Education Technology, 22(3), 1-2.
Retrieved February 6, 2009, from Education Full Text database.
Pullman, C. (2009). Framing Issues: Technology Equalizing Mathematics and Science Education. Winter 2009, ETEC533.
