Monday, April 18, 2011

Journal 8: Collaboration Makes the Ed Tech World Go Round (NETS T 1, 2, 3)

Niederhauser, Dale, & Knezek, Gerald. (2011). Collaboration makes the ed tech world go round. Learning and Leading with Technology, 38(6), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Research_Windows_Collaboration_Makes_the_Ed_Tech_World_Go_Round.aspx


Summary: Later advances in technology have allowed opportunities for collaboration between scholars and teachers around the globe. Global collaborations have happened in 3 areas:
1-     Standards: Developed nations have initiated national tech. standards for teachers. Also the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and cultural organization (UNESCO) have attempted to create a set of international standards that combine a focus on information and communication technologies.
2-     Conferences: Educational professionals collaborate to share ideas, research, and learn from each other at international tech conferences such as the world conference on computers in education which occurs every 5 years.
3-     Research: Collaborative efforts are the reason for improving our understanding of tech use in education. Example: A major effort is the 1996 publication of children and computers in school by Betty Collis and her colleagues marked an early effort to explore the emerging role of technology in education at a global level.


Question 1: How does collaboration through technology benefit our schools?
Advances in technology have brought teachers together despite distance or cultural differences. Teachers and administrators can discuss how to benefit our youth and learn different teaching strategies and new ideas to improve their pedagogy.
Also it collaboration between teachers and students and between students and their peers encourages group work and group discussions which will lead to more students gains.

Question 2: How can we keep improving our use of technology in each classroom?
By continually exploring new tools, joining online discussions, researching new ways to incorporate technology in class, and collaborating with other successful educators around the globe through different web tools such as Twitter and Diigo. Doing that will better prepare us, as prospective teachers, to teach about technology and incorporate it in our lesson plans. Being involved is the key to fuel our innovation and expand our knowledge.

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