IT Research Colloquium

    Dr. Ferster presented a predicative model of the diffusion of technology into the K-12 classroom. A better understanding of the diffusion factors would be beneficial for technology developers to assess the potential success of future products in their design phase. The following is the discussion question for you. 

• Why is it important for instructional technologists (us) to understand diffusion of innovation? What is our role to improve diffusions of innovation?
• There are still many teachers in schools using old school techniques. Teachers are comfortable with the way they get used to and often resist change. How can we reach those people and help them understand diffusion of innovation?

Hi, everyone

We had a great talk today with Dr. Cohoon.

Dr. Cohoon shared with us her findings on issues of gender and technology, and more specifically her researches on what computer science and computer engineering department could do to attract, retain and advance women’s representation. I feel that in her researches, there are many implications for our domain of Instructional Technology, for example

1. As far as teaching teachers to use technology in classroom, is there any difference between male teachers and female teachers? Are female teachers more afraid of learning how to using technology? Is there stereotyping existing in teacher’s training?

2. If the population of technology creators keeps severely gender imbalanced, what kind of impact will this situation bring to the domain of Instructional Technology, since Instructional Technology is somewhat a bridge of integrating technology and education?

Any ideas and thoughts are welcomed! Thank you all in advance for participating!

Jie

Dr. Bell mentioned in the beginning of his presentation that in some ways technology is less important to science than other disciplines because we have so many hands-on and inquiry-based activities that do not require technology. In some cases technology actually takes the place of a “hands-on” activity (for example, using Starry Night instead of making observations of nature).

Do you see any problems or issues that might arise from students replacing activities that use lab equipment/skills (and require students to overcome some challenges of lab work) with technology-based activities? How would you advise a science teacher who wanted only to use simulations of lab activities in his/her classroom?

The presentation of Dr. Ruth Ferree and Brendan Downey was very insightful on SLA (Second Language Acquisition). In classroom discussion, we shared helpful and informative talks on the application of narratives in various subject areas. Another topic we discuss more in this blog is native language support.

In thinking of the fast growing number of non-native English speakers in the U.S. K-12 classrooms, one of the urgent educational issues would be ESL education. Native language supported education or languages enrichment programs(both languages are used in classrooms at the same time by both language groups) is getting accepted as the effective education model by many bilingual or SLA scholars and teachers. However, the lack of qualified bilingual teachers is another barrier to expedite the program. IT may response to this current problematic situation.

• How does native language help LEP (Low English Proficiency) students of K-12 to achieve successful academic performance as well as to improve their English? Or
• How can IT assist “native language supported education” at schools?

Dr. Dexter gave us a very informative presentation about Technology Leadership this Thursday. It was a great experience! In the Colloquium, we have talked about the school characteristic of IT leadership, responsibilities of IT leaders, etc. Now here are a few questions which we can consider as some more in depth appropriate discussion topics:

• How can focusing on the perspective of the school organization to study the IT leadership improve teachers’ integration in the classroom and the school wide implementation environment?

• A variety of areas of research and expertise is listed in the paper as contributing to effective technology leadership .How would you add to or take away from that list?

If anyone has any ideas or opinions about these topics, feel more than welcome to speak up your mind!!!!

Jing

Our thanks to Dr. Garofalo for speaking to us about this fascinating application of technology in mathematics teacher education. To help carry-on the discussion on this blog, I pose the following questions:

• Why were students able to understand math better using these software applications than with more traditional methods?
• What was it about the technology that facilitated the learning, beyond improved math pedagogy?

We had discussed this a bit during the Colloquium, but now that we’ve had more time to think about it, perhaps some of you have more to say.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their input during the IT Colloquium earlier today. Your feedback, suggestions, and comments helped to provide a stimulating and engaging conversation about early childhood education and, more specifically, the MyTeachingPartner project. I’d like to invite everyone to continue our discussion about ECE, furthering our conversation via the blog below. I’ll get the ball rolling by presenting the last question that we did not get a chance to thoroughly discuss during class.

Here is the question: What are some of the main obstacles (holes in our boat, if you will) that you think the project team may encounter when implementing the MTP project into the classroom?

It may also be easier to initiate the conversation by trying to contextualize some of the topics that we’ve already discussed in class ( i.e., standards, assessment, technology, professional development concerns) as potential speed bumps to the project. Or you may have an idea or topic that you’d like to discuss that was not covered in the discussion already. Blog away!