Do students see technology as we do

Do students see technology as we do

• 1.
  DO STUDENTS SEETECHNOLOGY AS WE DO?!! “We see it as a tool while they see it as ‘a foundation: it underlies everything we do’” Eric Sheninger ** Have we asked ourselves if our “Learners” agree to the procedures we take? ** Do they see using technology in learning the same way we do? **Do we need to keep their desires into consideration? ** Will this bring about better results?
• 2.
  Let’s take alook first at Teachers’ opinions In ‘Collaborating with Computer to Collaborate with Humans’ Maryam Mosharraf and Yigal Rosen believe that working on computers develop “the capacity of an individual to effectively engage in a group process”. ** They made studies on 179 students in three different countries. “[They] show that students who collaborated with a computer agent showed high levels of performance in establishing and maintaining shared understanding, and monitoring progress toward solving the problem. Even more surprisingly, the students who were providing constructive feedback to the computer agent were more engaged than students who were working with a real classmate.”
• 3.
  Ms. Steinkuehler, anassistant professor of education communication and technology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison noted “how players in a chat room had used complex mathematics to argue for a certain plan of attack against some unruly beast. ‘People were actually – no kidding – gathering data on things like the game monster’s behavior , putting it in an Excel spreadsheet, and building little mathematical models to try to beat the monster………the game teaches complex problem solving and collaborative learning.”
• 4.
  On the otherhand, Will Right, designer of the best-selling Sims games said that nowadays “the problem is that many of the [educational] games aren’t much fun ………………And isn’t fun what makes games attractive to students in the first place?” In the same article ‘5 Teaching Tips for Professors – From Video Games’, Jeffrey R. Young says that “Professors in most college classes don’t always give feedback as rapid or exhaustive as that. Sure they return papers and other assignments with number grades and occasional comments, but that hardly resembles those score screens on an Xbox 360 game. ‘What if, for each of the aspects of the assignment, you got a subgrade,’ suggests Mr. Plass. “Students could see that ‘in these parts I got an A, but in these other parts I got a failing grade.’” That might be more meaningful than a big red C at the top of a paper.”
• 5.
  In a differentarticle, ‘5 Differences Between Education Games and Gamification of Education’, Kristen Dicerbo argues that “Good educational games should be designed around a theory of learning that identifies the knowledge, skills and attributes the game targets. A learning game is designed to support students, providing scaffolding and opportunity to construct meaning in the service of developing new understanding………..Simulations allow us to create a world that meets students where they are and allows them to create their problem space. An expert called Paul Thomas asked by The New York Times in an investigation about the advantages and disadvantages of using technology in schools said, “We rarely consider the negative implications for acquiring the newest “smart” board or providing tablets for every student. We tend to chase the next new technology without evaluating learning needs or how gadgets uniquely address those needs. Ironically, we buy into the consumerism inherent in technology (Gadget 2.0 pales against Gadget 3.0) without taking full account of the tremendous financial investments diverted to technology.
• 6.
  Now let’s takea look at what Students see or believe!! In a wide study done for the European Commission about the usage of ICT in Education in EU countries in 2013, they came out with the following conclusions: a. “At EU level, a large majority of students agree or strongly agree about a positive impact of ICT use on various learning processes and on class atmosphere, and to a similar extent regardless of the issue or grade in question”. b. “Agreeing or strongly agreeing about the fact that using a computer is really fun is the most frequently encountered student attitude towards computers: around 75% of students think so. Slightly lower percentages of students (around 70%) agree or strongly agree about the fact that using computers for learning will help them in their future life as adults.”
• 7.
  c. “Interestingly, thelowest percentages of students at all grades, i.e. around 60% of students, agree and strongly agree about the fact that they lose track of time when they are learning with a computer; the same proportion is observed at grade 11 concerning the use of a computer for learning because of an interest in computers.” d. “At EU level, positive (but tenuous) correlations are observed between students’ attitudes towards computers and the number of years they have been using ICT, as well as gender at grade 11 in general education. The longer students use computers at school, the more they have a positive attitude towards computers, and vice versa. At grade 11 in general education, boys have a very slightly move positive attitude towards computers than girls.”
• 8.
  In another investigationor questionnaire held by The New York Times, The Learning Network, ‘Do Your Teachers Use Technology Well?’ A student said, “ At my school, there was a fundraiser to get SMART Boards in almost every room. In some cases, it can be really engaging, like Algebra and Geometry or sciences like Physics because those are subjects which can tend to get boring and difficult to understand but the SMART Board helps as a visual aid and still draws attention. On the other hand, I have marvelous classes, such as various language and history classes and English class in which I am grateful for the lack of SMART board. Those are classes in which we don’t need as many visuals, and it is more effective to use less technology. I think that there must be a happy medium in the amount of technology used, and definitely not every class requires it or benefits from it.” Surprisingly, another student said, “Teachers these day rely on technology everyday, without it we wouldn’t even have class. When the computers are down it’s a ‘free-day’ because the teachers don’t know what to do. The technology doesn’t necessarily make learning better it just makes it easier and faster to learn . So it makes the learning experience better in the final outcome. It’s better to use hands-on textbooks rather than the digital one although it makes it better for the teachers because the students can study whenever and you don’t have to buy allot of sets. Personally I like the new way of learning but if more changes take place, which they will it will be a different story.
• 9.
  A third studentadded, “At my school we use a lot of technology to help us learn. Sometimes we go on the internet and research certain subjects and I think that helps us. Most teachers use PowerPoint now for note taking and I like that a lot better than a white/chalk board. Sometimes there’s “technical difficulties” but that happens to everyone so it’s not a huge problem. In some classes we learn by old ways like text books and just listening to the teacher talking about it. In language arts we do a lot of discussions, math a lot of examples, and science and social studies text books and discussions. There are a lot of different ways to learn, but technology definitely helps us out.” On the other hand, another student held a similar opinion saying, “I grew up with a computer in my classroom and had my first cell phone in 8th grade. Growing up, I felt like technology was the new wave so i saw a mix of traditional teaching mediums and technology-infused ways of teaching. Personally, I hate online classes. I hate lectures where we follow a power point. I learn more talking to a teacher and learning from their experiences and interacting socially. We don’t do that enough, and it’s the main way of learning. Interactive conversations within the classroom that stimulate creativity and constructive thinking is the type of environment that i learn from the best.
• 10.
  Besides those adifferent opinion shows up, another student said, “In my opinion teachers do not use technology properly. They are not keeping up with our generation and do not take advantage of the opportunities it provides to us. I think that the things that technology provides us is endless. It is helpful on any scale. Teachers are always complaining about late homework, and students are always complaining about lost homework. We can easily settle this feud with the simplest technology. Students will have all of their papers and due assignments to their teacher on time, and the teachers will easily be able to see that it’s done and gladly give them and A. Technology in school gives us endless opportunities and it is only best if our teachers provide it to us in the best way possible.” Finally, another student came to say, “I think that the teachers at my school use technology very well. We have technology all over our school and it really helps the teachers as well as the students. I feel that the teachers sometimes don’t know how to use the technology as well as the students do, so the students have to teach the teachers. I think this is good because both the students and the teachers are learning from each other.”
• 11.
  Thus by farwe come to the Conclusion that : Education is a wholesome process that must be viewed from all sides as Kristen Dicerbo mentioned in her article ‘Impacts of the Digital Ocean Published’, “While the digital ocean requires changes to technological systems and to some of our statistical and data procedures, perhaps the biggest change required is a change in thinking……….we must step back and consider not only new, specific technologies, but also new relationships to existing categories. Specifically, we will need to move from: -- Items in isolation to activity in context -- Assessment isolation to educational unification -- Individual paradigm to social paradigm”
• 12.
  Finally, I believethat 1. More technical professional training for teachers is needed. 2. There is quite a difference between students’ reactions in the USA and Europe which I believe goes back to differences in culture and policies. Yet more studies are recommended. 3. Testing educational games is really of great importance for the benefit of the whole educational process and its results. 4. As teachers we need to understand personally what are the things that technologically interest students, learn it, try it and if possible use it in attracting students more to the learning process. 5. The process of education is a mutual interest that needs cooperation and wisdom to enlighten the way to learning in a fast developing computing media.
• 13.
  Thank you Hope you’veenjoyed this discussion Here is the link to a digital sheet for the references I used for this Presentation https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UHZxDFgV6bnsiV6p3k0M1IqMFxLuBbCRzX6OrsEC8G4/edit?usp =sharing Contacts: [email protected] LinkedIn: Maha ESL Teacher LIKE /JOIN US ON: www.facebook.com/maha.esltraining www.facebook.com/groups/mahaesltraining LinkedIn Group: Maha ESL Training Community