Cycle Two: What Should Schools Teach? Intergrating Technology

As I watched my students enter the classroom today I was more aware of their reactions than usual. Their eyes were big with excitement, they took their seats unusually quick and phrases like, “Yes! We have the computers today!” were abundant. They knew we were doing an “Adopt-An-Element” project and although they were unsure of the specifics they were inclined to believe it was going to be fun.  As my class diligently looked up their Element’s group name, atomic number, and other various information I circled the room noticing how engaged every student was.  Most of the information for their element could be found on the Periodic Table hanging on the wall, but the lure of interacting with a virtual diagram was more enticing. Throughout the class period I was called to numerous students who wanted to show me the website they found comparing the cost per gram of each Element or tell me the interesting fact about Chlorine they just learned. Somehow teaching the same material but utilizing technology has just made the content more interesting. Today’s students are constantly “plugged-in” to technology. Instead of grabbing a textbook to learn how to divide fractions, they search for a You-Tube video. We as educators must embrace the technology craze or I fear we’re fighting an up-hill battle.  (Check out what these students had to say about using “Cloud-Based” learning) Teachers and schools should incorporate modern technology into their everyday curriculum.

While reading Hirsch’s “Cultural Literacy in Schools” it is clear he believes in a two part approach to curriculum. First, is the implementation of an extensive curriculum consisting of, “traditional literature knowledge, the information, attitudes and assumptions that literate Americans share—cultural literacy.”  In other words, students should have knowledge of words and worlds.  Hirsch gives the example of reading Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address; to fully understand it we must know “the historical circumstances that gave rise to it, they have to know who Eisenhower was and what a farewell address is in the American Tradition” (pg. 127). Hirsch is implying that in order to fully understand content students must acquire more detailed information, read deeper literacy and connect to past practices. However, students growing up in the 21^st century are exposed to more technology than their parents, grandparents or even older siblings. Thus the “cultural literacy” has changed. Schools should be incorporating technology daily into their student’s lives, as it has become an ever-changing and fast growing field.  Students need “knowledge of words and worlds” associated with technology and its uses.  Hirsch’s second pieced of the puzzle is an intensive curriculum which “encourages a fully developed understanding of a subject, making one’s knowledge of it integrated and coherent” (pg. 128). Hirsch explains that students should be fully engaged in material and build upon their experiences. Hirsch ends his article with a plea for educationists to join forces and combine practices of teaching traditional content and higher order skills.

In the article “Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom,” Sara Corbett describes the everyday life of a student attending Quest to Learn, a non-charter public school in New York City. At Quest to Learn students play and design video games, blog, film and edit videos and record podcasts. Here educators have taken steps to, “stop looking so critically at the way children use media and start exploring how that energy might best be harnessed to help drive them academically.” Reflecting on Hirsch’s two-part curriculum, I believe he would not be completely in favor of this modernized curriculum. However, Hirsh does explain a need for educators to combine methods of teaching traditional academia and higher order thinking skills.

Although very different, both of these articles contain some common threads. Students need to be deeply engaged and interested to learn specific content. Also, students should be culturally literate and exposed to higher order thinking skills. I believe this can be achieved by effectively utilizing technology and this “must happen across the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen and enhance the learning process.” In, the article Why Integrate Technology into theCurriculum?: The Reasons are Many writers state that “properly used, technology will help students acquire the skills they need to survive in a complex, highly technological knowledge-based economy.”

Additional Resources- Technology Integration:What Experts Say
http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-experts