Author: Michael

“Using technology for technology’s sake isn’t a good application of instructional time or funding, and it is unlikely to improve student achievement.” (p.217)

Over the past few months we’ve taken a look at how technology can support research-proven instructional strategies. Let’s take a few minutes to summarize the ideas presented by Pitler et al in the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works.

The quote above, which leads off the Appendix, pretty much sums it up. There are many cool, slick technology tools available, but if the use of technology is not tied to a learning goal, then it’s more than likely not a good use of technology.

We have been working with learning goals and data teams as part of the district initiative on improved learning. This book is a great tie to how technology can support instruction in meaningful ways.

As a quick recap, the planning questions for instruction which should frame any instruction, and links back to the individual posts with the related strategies and technology applications are:

• Overview
• What will students learn?
  • Setting Objectives
• Which strategies will provide evidence of student learning?
  • Providing Feedback
  • Providing Recognition
• Which strategies will help students acquire and integrate learning?
  • Cues, Questions and Advance Organizers
  • Nonlinquistic Representation
  • Summarizing and Note Taking
  • Cooperative Learning
  • Reinforcing Effort
• Which strategies will help students practice, review, and apply learning?
  • Identifying Similarities and Differences
  • Homework and Practice
  • Generating and Testing Hypotheses

I hope that this book review has helped you to think about ways you can use technology to support your teaching. The array of tools available is great, and gets bigger every day. The challenge is to find the ways in which technology provides meaningful experiences to improve learning.

As always, your thoughts, comments or questions are always welcome!

Image citation:

“Book Cover.” Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. 5 Nov. 2008 <http://shop.ascd.org/ProductDisplay.cfm?ProductID=107025>.

Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom

In an ongoing look at the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the next strategy is generating and testing hypotheses. Technology advances including probeware, interactive simulations, and spreadsheets, allow classroom time to be devote classroom time to interpreting data, rather than collecting data.

In the science classroom, digital microscopes and digital sensors allow students to easily capture information and focus on analysis. Even without having such resources, the authors make the point that the Internet itself is a huge data collection tool for any curriculum. For example, a social studies class could collect data from the U.S. Census Bureau and import it into Excel to create charts regarding population shifts. Math students could use the NASA FlyByMath site to work on distance-rate-time problems. ELA students who paste their writing into Wordle get a unique visual representation of their work. Online simulations at Explore Learning allow science and math students to test many different concepts.

The array of tools available through software, hardware and the Internet provide great opportunites for generating and testing hypotheses. Just for fun – here is a Wordle using the words in this post – enjoy!

click to enlarge

Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom

In an ongoing look at the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the next strategy is homework and practice. Marzano’s research indicates that typically, students need approximately 24 repetitions of a skill in order to achieve 80 percent competency.

There are many web resources that can help students practice skills. Some sites are subscription services and some are free. Below is a short list of some of the sites that we use to help students practice skills, and also some sites recommended in the book that may be unfamiliar.

Everyday Math Games – 5th graders use this for math skills
MasterGuru – an online game to practice ELA, Social Studies, Math and Science skills
BrainPOP – many movies include a quiz at the end to test knowledge
Explore Learning Gizmos – Science and Math teachers use these interactive tools for teaching and reinforcing
BBC Skillswise – factsheets, worksheets, quizzes and games to practice words and numbers
National Library of Virutal Manipulatives – interactive manipulatives for Math
I Know That – learning activities for grades K-6 in ELA, Math, Science, Social Studies and the Arts

If you use another website for homework and practice, please share it here in the comments!

Content Tech
Ideas for Technology Use in the Classroom

In an ongoing look at the book, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, the next strategy is identifying similaritities and differences. Graphic organizers, including venn diagrams, are once again are great tools to use for this strategy. However, I’m going to focus on how spreadsheet software can also be a very useful tool to support identifying similarities and differences.

Spreadsheets (such as Excel) allow very easy input of data into columns and rows. With a few clicks, charts can be created that show the trends in the data in a much more readable fashion.

An example is the 6th grade weather skinny book done each year. As part of the book, students have to track weather patterns between two cities for 10 days, and analyze the trends. Using Excel, students enter the dates, high, and low temperatures for both cities. The data in text form is difficult to visualize, but by using the Chart Wizard in Excel, the students quickly create graphs that allow for easier comparison of weather trends between the chosen cities.

The charting features of Excel can be useful in many areas to help students identify similiarties and differences.