Educational Technology Research

Example 1

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/08/30/survey-educators-feel-education/

This article discussed teacher and administrator outlook on the current state of education with a
focus on the integration of technology in the classroom. A point made in the article was that 98% of
teachers surveyed used some form of technology in the classroom (whether it was integrated
successfully or not). They also identified the roadblocks to technology integration as lack of planning
time, shortage of devices, and lack of technology focused professional development.

These obstacles are something that I noticed in my own school. They are very quick to adopt new
forms of technology, but once they have it they do not train staff. For example we acquired two 3D
printers, but they broke down within two years likely due to misuse. It is great that there are schools
that keep up to date with technology trends, but without proper training we end up either ineffectively
integrating technology or misusing technology to the point of breaking it. You need to know how to
use the tools in order make use of them.

Example 2

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/09/07/teaching-kids-copyright/

I decided to read this article because I wanted to see if I could find any valuable resources for
teaching middle school students about copyright which I talk about in my digital citizenship unit. It
provides links to some pretty good resources for teaching topics such as: copyright, public domain,
fair use, and Creative Commons. Some of these resources include: Common Sense Education (I
have used this/great lessons), Creative Commons, and Teaching Copyright from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation. It also talks about a website called Photos for Class that provides students with
images that are (for the most part) safe for school and provide citations for students, which is
definitely something I want to look into.

The end of the article calls for teachers to also practice these digital citizenship skills when creating
lessons, presentations, etc. for classes. It talks about the importance of teachers modelling these
practices and demonstrating what a good digital citizen entails. If they see you following what you
teach them, they will be more likely to take it to heart.

Example 3

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/09/13/edtech-k12-technology/
This article discusses some new educational technology developments. The first two they mention
are makerspaces and robotics with a time-to-adoption of one year or less. We have both of these in
my school.The makerspace took less than a year of setup and Vex robotics will be adopted by my
school this year on top of the Lego robotics we already use.

The article also discussed the educational technology developments of virtual reality and artificial
intelligence. It will be interesting to see how these will affect schools. The article goes on to say that
these developments will help improve access to knowledge for students and help spur innovation.
The article says these advances will bring challenges including: rethinking the roles of teachers,
teaching computational thinking, the achievement gap, and sustaining innovation through leadership
changes.

Example 4

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/09/20/4-considerations-makerspaces/

I chose to read the article 4 considerations for your first makerspace. My school already has a
makerspace, but I was interested in learning more about them since I wasn't involved in building the
one we have. This article gave me a better idea of what makerspaces should be. The one that we
have at our school is one which the author considers basic. We have some Legos, tables that
students can draw on, and some computers. It is definitely geared toward the younger grade levels.
The fact that it is basic and geared toward younger students is not a bad thing, these are the kind of
tools that grade level should be using.

I also learned about some more advanced makerspaces that include 3D printers, soldering tools,
3Doodler pens, robotics, and more. These are geared toward older students. The author points out
that makerspaces should not be separated rooms with these resources. For example: my school
has a robotics room and 3D printing room which are separated (these are not makerspaces).
Makerspaces should be a combination of different resources in one room which students can have
access to.

Example 5

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/09/26/social-medias-classroom-catch-22/

I thought that this would be a good read after the presentation in the last class. The article talks
about how they like to use social media as resource to understand students, but they do not like its
influence on students. The article says that fifty percent of surveyed teachers use social media to
understand students' pop culture references and thirty seven percent of teachers surveyed use
memes, emojis, or GIFs to drive home a point.

The flip side of this though is that sixty six percent of the teachers surveyed believe that social media
results in students not believing spelling or grammar are important. Eighty eight percent of teachers
claimed they were annoyed by the improper use of basic words and another seventy five percent are
bothered by slang in student work. Despite these annoyances forty five percent of teachers think
that social media can enhance the educational experience.

It is interesting that the article is stating that social media can enhance learning, while also lowering
students' effort in mastering grammar and spelling.

Example 6
https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/10/05/parents-school-communications/

This article discussed how parents want to receive communications from their schools and what
kinds of information they want to hear from the school. According to the article parents want
communications to address recommendations about apps to use at home to support learning, types
of technology or workplace skills their child is learning, what type of technology they should have at
home to support learning, and how to work with teachers to improve learning opportunities. The
article states that parents want personalized and easy to access information.

The article went on to discuss the preferred means of communication parents wanted to receive. A
majority of parents preferred email communication with text message coming second. The article
also talked about the effectiveness of social media in communicating with parents. Only 16% of
parents thought Facebook is a good communication tool. While 39% of principals and 78% of
district communication officers said Facebook is effective. It was interesting to see the difference of
opinion on Facebook between parents and schools officials. I wonder what causes such a huge
disparity.

Example 7

https://www.eschoolnews.com/2017/10/11/it-leaders-digital-materials/

This article talks about the large increase in digital materials being incorporated into schools. The
article mentions that 58% of survey respondents claim there are more digital assets to deploy this
year than last year. It also cites that instructional materials will be 50% digital within the next three
years. This large shift toward digital brings with it concerns that schools do not have the staff
required to meet the needs of this shift. This is something that I have noticed in my own school.

The article states that 13% of IT leaders said staffing matches their needs. This is extremely low. I
notice this in my own school. We only have three people working in the IT department of my school.
The IT people that I have talked to have also claimed that malicious cyber attacks have increased
between last year and this year which raises concerns of privacy and security of important
information. The article also states that 52% of IT professionals claim they spend more time on
problem-solving technical issues rather than working in proactive mode. How are schools supposed
to protect themselves and help integrate technology into the classroom if schools are unwilling to put
the money into more staffing?