As we make it to the end of our Teaching with Technology course, we are asked to reflect on our group assignment.  We were asked help a teacher create a unit to incorporate technology into her classroom.  This teacher had students with varying levels of intelligence as well as various types of needs.  My group chose to create a group of lessons for 9^th grade geography.  While I was unfamiliar with the course topic, I was eager to jump into the scenario.  The possibilities of technology to integrate into an imaginary scenario are endless, but I was reminded of a warning we read about.    “One of the enduring difficulties about technology and education,” according to Dr. Martha Stone Wiske, co-director of the Educational Technology Center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, “is that a lot of people think about the technology first and the education later.” Sometimes as a “techno-geek” we get so wrapped up in the cool factor of educational gadgets.  We have to remember that the content comes first.  Students are not going to learn more or better with a technology tool if the rigor of the subject is not presented.  As a technologist we have to stay away from “fads” and look at the research.  We have to find products that will fit with 21 century learners in our classrooms.

                This assignment was a group project.  Working with a group, especially one that is not face-to-face, can be challenging.  We did not always agree on the vision of our website, or the interpretation of the instructions.  However we always where professional and in the end we accomplished the goal of the assignment. I do see the need for my class to become more problem solving based and less fact driven.  James Paul Gee warns of school not changing.  “If they’re going to survive in a developed country outside of low-level service work, they’re going to have to have innovation and creativity.  And so the form of schooling that we engage in basically privileges people who know a lot of facts but can’t solve problems with them is on its last legs.”  I enjoyed using the wiki as a place to communicate and have chats.  I believe that this was an invaluable tool in our project.  I saw the need to incorporate more group and collaborative lessons in my curriculum.   Again James Paul gee states, the next generation of schools will be “schools to solve problems, but not just to solve problems, but to be able to do it collaboratively so that you can work in a group where the group is smarter than the smartest person in the group.”  I intend on finding more collaborative lesson and allowing my students to use web 2.0 tools to collaborate together. 

Schacter, J. (1999). The impact of education technology on student achievement: What the most current research has to say. Santa Monica, CA: Milken Exchange on Education Technology. Retrieved from http://www.mff.org/pubs/ME161.pdf.

    Big Thinkers: James Paul Gee on Grading With Games

 Citation: Edutopia.org (nd). Big thinkers: James Paul Gee on grading with games. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-james-gee-video