Toward Positive Teaching and Learning Experiences with Technology: A Question of Accessibility

Patricia Rosen, February 21, 2004, revised February 29, 2004

Introduction
Real-life Situation
Possible Solutions
Message Board
Conclusion
Reference Links


Introduction:

A goal for Weston School professional development, in keeping with the QEP, is to encourage and support teachers with the integration of technology into their planning and teaching. Weston has fabulous resources in terms of technology, both in hardware and software; however they are proving to be very difficult to access, even for those teachers who are comfortable with IT.


Real-life Situation:

Lost in Cyberspace: A Carefully Planned Lesson Gone Amok - 02. 20. 2004

Due to the inaccessibility of individual secondary student accounts to teachers, a request for a separate English account was made so that I, the teacher, could post lesson materials that the whole class could use. The request was quickly fulfilled by the IT coordinator.

The students were busy planning their first persuasive essays. The activity for the day was to fill in a graphic organizer template that I had created with Kidspiration specifically for this writing project.

The students had previously brainstormed ideas when conducting a web search and had saved these documents to their personal accounts. The information in these documents was needed in order to complete the planned activity

We began the lesson by logging onto the newly created English account in order to review the posted lesson plan so that the students would be well aware of what was in store for them that day.

Once the activity was explained, the students had to log off of the English account and then onto their individual accounts in order to print out the brainstorming documents. Three of the students could not log on to their individual account, they claimed that they were typing in the correct password but they may have forgotten it, I don’t know. The students who could log on immediately began to print, but they were all receiving printer errors. I checked that the printer was on. It was, so I called for technical support to see what I should do. The response was that the students had probably never printed anything from their accounts before and so the printer had to be added to their accounts and I should refer to the instructions posted on the bulletin board at the front of the room.

Problems with this response:

When it was discovered that we could not print, I changed tactics and decided that the students would email the documents to themselves to then access from the web when logged onto the other account. Problem: Many of the students do not have email accounts!

I changed tactics once more and decided that we would practice using the graphic organizer as a class and do individual projects another time.

I told the students to log off and log back onto the English account. At this point students were frustrated, and I heard at least one ‘this is stupid’ remark muttered to a friend. I ignored the remark because I really could not argue with it. We returned to class and I read a book for the remainder of the period.

Needless to say, a lot of work and effort had been put into planning this lesson and it was thrown out the window. Not only that, but the students were frustrated, as was I, with the entire experience.

I do not know when I will next plan an activity using technology with my English class. This is really a shame because, due to their learning difficulties, these students in particular would benefit from using the technology we have as a learning strategy for improving their communication skills.


Possible Solutions

There absolutely must be more communication between teachers and the IT department. As it is now, our school's technology, and the rules that govern its use, have been given to those who will be its prime users - the teachers. Teachers have not yet, however, been provided a forum to voice how technology can best serve them and their goal of enhancing their students' learning. I encourage teachers to begin a dialogue amongst themselves, including the IT coordinator, that will help lead our school towards greater unity between technology and teaching (see the message board below for a place to get started). In order to begin this process, I have outlined some ideas below:

Secondary teachers should have access to all of their students’ accounts in order to:

All accounts in the school should have printers added to them from the outset

Students should be provided with email accounts


Message Board

Dialogue Creates Change
I am looking forward to responses to this report from the IT department, as well as teachers and administrators, in the hopes that a positive dialogue will result. Responses can be posted publically to the IT Message Board . I will be moderating this message board, which means that I will be reviewing each message before it is posted. If you would like to post your message anonymously, please indicate so at the start of your message.


Conclusion:

In order to make the goal of technology-integration a reality, we will need to focus our attention on making technology more accessible to both students and teachers. In order to do this, a dialogue must be created between teachers and IT staff. Until this is done, many teachers, including myself, may choose not to use the new technologies that Weston has recently acquired. The lack of accessibility is proving too frustrating, even for teachers who are quite comfortable with IT.


Reference Links:


Toward Positive Teaching and Learning Experiences with Technology: A Question of Accessibility
prepared by Patricia Rosen, Weston School, February 2004

prosen@westonschool.org
www.westonschool.org