A very creative elementary teacher will retire in June because she no longer feels she can teach due to her district’s technology push. Her district purchased a math online program in which the computer program presents the math concept and the program has students do stations for a designated amount of time each day. Her job is to make sure that the students rotate through the stations.
Another teacher no longer has time to relate his subject area to the real world because he has to push through his textbook so students can do the designated and scheduled online drill and practice for each unit. The district looks at the student data from the online activities as an assessment measure.
A science teacher has to have her students do a specified number of app activities for each unit. Although this teacher used to do many student inquiry labs, she has had to eliminate those labs in order to provide students time to complete all the apps.
Finally, students in Carpe Diem schools spend half to two thirds of their day doing computer work. These students score well on state tests. (http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/04/22/carpe-diem-charter-school-seizes-tomorrows-innovations-today)
What is your view of the role of technology in the teaching learning process? Do teachers or technology determine how students spend their learning time? Who/What makes decisions about what learning gap students have and supplies a new strategy to overcome the gap?
cross-posted at http://eduwithtechn.wordpress.com
Harry Grover Tuttle teaches English and Spanish college courses at Onondaga Community College and blogs at Education with Technology. He is also the author of several books on formative assessment.
