Is Technology Necessary in Every Class?

There is no right or wrong answer when discussing the necessity of technology in the classroom. The technology used in a classroom will vary from school to school and even teacher to teacher. The real question should be focused on the amount of technology being implemented and the effectiveness of it. This was discussed in class the other day and I will gladly expand on it. I hear some people say that their school was "one to one" and I didn't have the slightest clue as to what that meant until maybe a year ago. Turns out "one to one" means for each student, there was a laptop or iPad designated to them for use throughout the school year. Talk about overkill. Do these schools no longer have computer labs? What was wrong with using those? My objection to this "one to one" situation is starting to become clear. It's not all bad, I suppose. There has to be some pros to this abundance of technology.

Coming from a high school that did not implement the "one to one" program, I find it hard to have a good perspective as to why being one to one put students at such an advantage. I should note that this conversation is revolving solely around high school students and classrooms. Therefore, online classes don't have an impact in this argument since those are only for college students. But wait, I read Kyle Koch's blog discussing online courses/homework at his own school and couldn't help but think that my school was just so out of touch from the rest of the world. Do high schools really offer online classes? I read farther into Mr. Koch's blog and discovered why -- staffing issues. The school district did not have enough teachers for each school to teach certain classes. Unfortunate circumstances really, but that leads me to believe technology is NOT all that bad! It is absolutely necessary for situations such as that. But that's about as far as it goes.

The only argument I have against school districts trying to force teachers to use technology is 'why not let them teach how they want to?' If the teachers' methods don't involve technology every class period but the material is taught effectively and the students are achieving exceptional test scores, why complicate things? Why would an administration go to that teacher and say, "Hey I think you should start having your students use their laptops more often."? If it's not broke, don't fix it. I can see how science classes, whether it be physical, life, or earth science, can benefit greatly from using technology every day in the classroom. The majority of that content is difficult to learn without having a visual of some sort to assist the students. Textbooks might not always do the trick either, since videos are especially useful in science classes. But outside of that subject, I don't believe everyday technology in the classroom offers a huge advantage. Relate it straight to math, and the majority of mathematical content taught in high school is learned through pencil on paper, recognition, relation, and repetition. Can the student recognize what the problem is asking them, relate it to a real-world application, and solve it repetitively until they have a firm grasp of the material? If the answer is yes, then I see no problem with not using technology. However, if the answer is no, then the teacher may want to explore new teaching methods involving technology and more student-interactive options.

Clearly I am not a fan of the excessive technology being used in high school classrooms today. Granted, I came from a high school that hardly used technology, and my teachers were excellent using only the textbook and whiteboard. I am confident that I too can be a successful math teacher without all of the technological gadgets being used in today's classrooms. However, I am prepared to come to Math 371 every day with an open mind in hopes that I will learn all of the positive features that technology has to offer in the classroom.

Zachary Schroeder

Out of Class Instructors and Online Homework

My experience as a high school student had a very even blend of technology and traditional learning in the classroom. All students were given new laptops as freshmen by the school board and were able to use them in all classes for the rest of their high school career. Some classes were able to utilize this technology in better capacities than others. We had specific technology classes that showed uses and applications of laptops from video editing, all the way to simple coding. Despite the classes I had that were specifically formatted to utilize our technology, I never found myself doing much with my laptop other than typing notes, writing papers, and creating an occasional presentation. In fact, I rarely if ever used my technology in a math class. However, another neighboring district offered several math classes that were taken entirely online with video instruction from an out-sourced teacher and with online homework. I initially thought this was a great idea for smaller school districts (such as my own) that had trouble staffing teachers. However, as I learned more about the courses and the way they were actually being taught, I gained an entirely different perspective.

As a future educator, I have some major gripes with the way that online classes were taught. First, I do not like the limited contact with teachers. As I have said, there are instances where this may be a district's only option. For instance, my neighboring school district used this as a way to offer classes that it would not be able to otherwise, such as pre-calculus and calculus. However, the students in those classes were only able to interact with their teachers during the allotted class times, and this interaction was over the internet through a video monitor. Not only this, but their class time may have been shared with several other districts trying to offer the same class. This means that students from one district would have to compete with the students from the other district for time to have questions answered by the teacher. In larger schools, a student would probably be able to ask a district math teacher about their questions. However, in a school district like mine this may not be the case because of staffing issues. This led to obvious problems with student learning--a lack of help with homework.

This course used an interesting mode of homework delivery. The assignments were given on the online homework platform WebAssign,  where the questions were instantly graded for the answer but the students were also required to submit handwritten solutions that they did on their laptop. It was not a huge issue to write the solutions since the laptops had a swivel-top and touch screen for easy writing. However, this created a huge problem of cheating between districts that were in the same course. The assignments had to be completed on a rigid schedule. The schedule, along with the fact that students could not easily access a teacher for help, led to cheating between districts. A student from one district could work out all of the solutions for an assignment, and e-mail it to a student from the other district. Students could then change the size or colors of solutions, and since the teachers generally graded by district, cheating would go unnoticed. In addition,  students would use online math solvers to get their homework done.

These are just some of the cons of outsourced learning. However, I think that if done correctly, an outsourced class could be a great opportunity to offer a class that would otherwise be unavailable to students. I hope to learn more about outsourced teaching and other technology related solutions to staffing issues during this semester in Math 371.

Kyle Koch

Mass Customized Learning

If you had asked me 6 months ago what I thought I was going to learn about in Technology for STEM Educators, I would have had little idea other than SMART boards and calculators. However, since last semester, I have found a few things that I am curious in learning about. Specifically, I am very interested in learning about mass customized learning.

            Mass customized learning is something I learned about from my brother, a student at the University of South Dakota. He is currently student-teaching in Beresford, SD, where they have begun using it, specifically in their math program. He is in school to be an elementary teacher, so he is currently in a 5^th grade classroom while experiencing it. From what he has told me, customized learning, which many people seem to have strong opinions opposing, has been an extremely positive experience for the kids in his class.

            In the way that Beresford has used it, as far as I understand, the students use iPads to access their specified work. The students go into the lesson, which has a short video lecture prepared by the teacher, and then it helps them work through examples before giving them an assignment to do. At the end of the lesson, they are given a 1, 2, or 3, based on their performance on the lesson. If they achieve a 2 or higher, they are allowed to go onto the next lesson. At the end of the chapter, if a student received a 2 but not a 3, they are given more problems from that section in order to prove their mastery of the content before they are given an assignment covering the entire chapter. At that point, if they have become proficient in all sections, they are allowed to move onto the next chapter. From what my brother has told me, this allows for he and the other teacher to go around the room and help the students that need further instruction in each section while allowing for the students who understand the content to move ahead and further their learning.

            Many people who are against mass customized learning say that it makes the kids who are not advancing at as fast of a pace as their friends feel like they can’t do it and causes them to give up without ever giving school a real chance. If quick learning students were given projects to do after finishing a chapter instead of being allowed to move on to the next chapter would this help the slower children feel more encouraged? But at the same time, would this encourage students to work more slowly so as not to have to do more work? I think only time and research would be able to tell on that.

            To me, mass customized learning is something that is very interesting because of the conflicting opinions on it on the internet that I have seen and also because I am curious to see how it could be potentially applied at the high levels or if it is limited to the younger students. If it can be applied to all students, is it harming the more slowly working students because they feel as though they are being left behind? With Beresford only applying it in their math classes, could it be applied to other subjects with the same effectiveness? With lots of questions and not a whole lot of answers, I am hoping to find some. Because of all of this, it is something that I look forward to learning more about during the semester and maybe applying to my future teaching.

Enhance Learning

Growing up, technology was easily accessible to me. My family always had a computer, I have had a phone from a young age, and my parents always led me to new experiences involving technology. When I was going into my freshman year of high school, we were provided one-to-one technology by our school district, and this technology at the time was an iPad. Because I worked at the school as a technology assistant, I knew what types of apps were being loaded onto these iPads and what uses they each had. Going into the school year, I was excited, only to later be extremely disappointed. Each of the four years this was a repetition for me. The only thing technology was enhancing was my ability to become distracted with apps that were being allowed.

As well a becoming easily distracted, students also tend to find ways around the rules. In particular I think to one of my classes, “Novels”. During this class we did exactly how it sounds, read books. At the beginning of the hour we were given a relatively easy quiz, and then for the remaining time we were instructed to read. Because each one of us had iPads, we had the ability to download books onto the devices instead of getting a hard copy. This led to students to playing games on their iPad instead of doing the reading. To me, this is an issue because the students who did this were most likely not going to spend time out of class reading and deciphering what the chapter was about. Here, technology became a distraction and hurt learning experiences.

This same instance happened in a lot of classes. Soon enough, I was a senior and my iPad sat in my locker all year, dead. I did not use this to my advantage because my teachers did not capitalize on this source anymore. The teachers were feeling the force of integration and were starting to realize that this luxury was starting to become a problem. Instead of fixing the problem, they ignored it all together, and in essence this technology was wasted.

I realize this post has been pretty negative about technology, but that is why I am excited for the things I will learn in Technology for STEM Educators (MATH 371). I want to learn how to use this in a positive manner and enlighten students in their learning. I want to make learning more fun, instead of forcing/not using technology readily available.

Technology implements new learning opportunities, and assignments can be tailored to specific students. The instant feedback of technology and full participation that can be enforced in a classroom is extremely beneficial as a teacher. Technology is a life skill that will always be prevalent. The benefits seem to outweigh the drawbacks, but finding effective uses can be time-consuming and hindering.

I think as future teachers/teachers, we all need to make sure we are using technology in the right manner. That we are using technology to enhance learning and not distract learning. Teachers need to use technology in an advantageous way, rather than just using it because it is accessible. We need to be mindful of using technology to help students understand subject matter from a different perspective. I challenge us to integrate technology in a way that is beneficial for everyone, and not just have it be a waste of student and teacher time. Technology is a fantastic tool we have in our metaphorical toolbox, so let’s use it to engage and not distract. Jayni Anderson

An Eye-Opening Experience

Coming into this semester, I felt like I really didn’t understand the prevalence of the big issues we talk about in our education classes, particularly the math-specific classes.  We have talked about how tricks and mnemonics might actually hinder the learning of students because of the lack of understanding and the reliance on blind memorization.  The role of calculators in the classroom has been a hot topic of debate.  How much students learn and retain information about basic computations from year to year has also been discussed.  All of these ideas, and more, were running through my mind as I came face-to-face with the reality I didn’t think I knew anything about.

When she showed me her first problem, I knew I had a lot of explaining to do.  The student I was tutoring had gotten a poor grade on one of her first quizzes of the semester, and she told me she had no idea where she went wrong.  As a sophomore in college, she was struggling with understanding how exponents work.  She needed help figuring out how to rewrite the fourth root of x as x to some power.  It seemed as though she didn’t remember anything about radicals like that from high school.  After some explanation, she eventually showed me that she could convert other examples of roots to exponents, so we moved on.

Next, we looked at a problem she got wrong that involved expanding an expression, namely 2(x+3)^2.  Looking at her previous work, I noticed her first step was to distribute the 2, so she had written (2x+6)^2.  When I asked her why she did that, she said, “Well, in ‘Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally,’ parentheses come first.”  Our discussions of PEMDAS have mentioned how confusing it can be for students, such as in this situation.  I had never really been given the opportunity to explain to a student where the mnemonic can be tricky, so I finally had the chance at this tutoring session.  I don’t know if my explanation was adequate enough for her to make the right calculation in all situations, but she seemed to grasp the content for at least this specific type of problem. 

The last major problem I came across in my tutoring session was how to simplify 125^(1/3).  The answer she had written was 41.67, which is actually found when dividing 125 by 3.  I knew right away where her mistake was, but I wanted to know what she thought she did wrong.  “I typed it in my calculator, and it gave me the wrong answer.”  I had her show me how she input the information in her calculator, and sure enough, the answer she got was 41.67.  What was her problem?  No one had taught her how to use the technology!  She had no idea that she needed to use parentheses for fractional exponents, so I showed her how to input it with parentheses to get the correct answer.  Of course, the point of this problem was to have students rewrite 125 as 5^3 and solve by combining the exponents, but I wanted to make sure she knew how to use the little technology she is allowed to prevent further mistakes.

I never thought I would see so many of the issues we discuss in one tutoring session, but it happened.  All of the important information we want students to know may actually not be getting across to them.  I am hoping throughout this semester in MATH 371, and other math-education classes, that we as future math teachers are able to finally understand the prevalence of these problems and make great strides toward finding solutions.

Ashley Larson

Another new semester of technology

When classes began on January 7^th, I was not mentally nor physically prepared for the beginning of the semester.  While I have taught this technology course for several years, each spring it is different because the nature of the content and the students.  This semester will have an additional challenge because the class is larger than normal, 19 students. Since we have 14 weeks in the semester, we will have 2 blog posts some weeks.  This will also make it challenging for presentations as the students won’t be able to do individual ones.

While this class challenges me every spring, I love teaching it.  Most of the students in the class were in my geometry class in the fall so they have formed relationships with each other and that will make the class more fun.  As usual, there will be tweeting using the hashtag, #Math371.  In fact one of the students already tweeted with that hashtag!

Once again I brought up the idea of having them learn programming and it was met with some groans, with the exception of one student who seemed excited.  He may be the one teaching us how to program and he wants to use Python. 

I look forward to learning a lot again this semester!