Discussion 2

Although these articles were somewhat outdated, some of their findings are still relevant to today's classroom. As stated in last week's articles, many teachers do not use technology in a way that is meaningful to today's students. I read the article Understanding and Measuring Teacher Technology Use cited in Examining Teacher Technology Use last semester. This article had highlighted how the majority of teacher's polled in the USEIT survey used computers for e-mail and lesson preparation while very few reported using technology to support higher level thinking skills. I was surprised to find that this was also a characteristic of teachers in Silicon Valley given the community's stakeholders' high use of technology. Another important point was raised in the Cuban article. It is stated that one of the reasons teachers have a low use of technology is because training was offered at inconvenient times (p. 826). I have read several articles that raise the same issues. Teachers have often cited little or no technology training being offered as a reason as to why they do not integrate it into the classroom. During my first year of teaching, I received only teacher-centered technology training. I did not receive any training on how to integrate technology using student-centered practices.

I liked that Piro, one of the teachers in the Cuban article, stated that "computer use depends on the instructor's teaching and learning goals" (p. 815). I think teachers can be under so much pressure to use the latest and greatest methods and tools, that we forget what it is that we are trying to teach our students. Technology is not always the appropriate assessment tool and if we use it in a lesson to simply "use it" then our students will gain anything meaningful from the experience.