With every curriculum and lesson plan, the teacher needs to think of what will and will not work with their students. The "NteQ Model" (Morrison and Lowther, 2010) provides a guideline as to how to setup an integrated lesson plan. I guess it would all depend on the subject material as to how I would setup a lesson plan to integrate technology skills, therefore the teacher has to plan ahead to determine when technology is a useful part of the lesson. Being a History major, I've had to do a number of research papers and projects, which inevitably resulted in extensive use of computers to locate proper sources for my topic. I would use technology in a curriculum to be used as a source of information or to assist in locating sources. Jstor is a great site that many universities use to publish various articles and thesis writings from professors and grad students alike, it's basically an online library that has material on almost every topic. I would use this as a way to teach my students how to organize and compare sources based on the writers perspectives. This would also be a great way to educate them on figuring out whether or not a source is actually credible. One could also use the internet to post your entire lesson plan and schedule on a site where your students can easily access it.
2. Why do I need objectives to help with my planning and lesson development?
When creating a lesson plan or a curriculum, I would assume that the teacher has a goal in mind as well as objectives in order to reach that goal. When talking to students about history, they always ask me, "Why do I need to know this?" It's a valid question that educators need to ask themselves before setting the standards and developing a classroom goal. "Although students come into classrooms with their own achievement goals, their goals also are influenced by teachers’ goals." (Brem, Duggan, and Hussman 2005). What this means is that the teacher provides motivation to students who would possibly only do mediocre work, so the teacher tries to set a goal for the students.
3. How can I encourage my students to engage in the processing of information?
This is a tricky question for me, because it's hard to get students to process historical information and facts. History can be taught by not being purely Sophist, so the teacher has to be creative when using the Socratic Method when discussing the Civil War (De Marzio, Grinberg, and Laverty 2006). It's boring to pour over countless diagrams and information that seems pointless to some people. Technology can help with this, because a student can look up specific information by simply typing it in.
4. Do I have to use a different lesson plan when I want my students to use computers?
No, a lesson plan should be flexible and quite frankly it has to be just in case something in schedule changes (snow day) or even when the class is having a hard time with a certain aspect of a topic. A lesson can still be taught while integrating technology; the teacher could decide to do a Powerpoint presentation at the last minute and still cover what was planned. I do believe that this does have an issue with teachers relying on the computer to provide the lesson. Computers are not to be used to provide education, they are an educational tool (Lowther and Morrison, 2010).
5. What is the relationship between objectives and computer functions?
The relationship between objectives and computer functions all depends on what the lesson plan has created. There could be some classes that'll be more computer based to do research, word-processing, or presentations whereas others may be more traditional. It really is up to the instructor on how he/she wants their students to use technology in regards to educational purposes.
6. Can you use a computer for every objective or lesson?
This question reminds me of the movie "The Matrix," because the characters could learn anything and everything off of the supercomputer. I remember one scene where the woman had to learn how to fly a helicopter, so the operator loaded a disc into her, for lack of a better word, brain and literally uploaded all the information on the chopper. Can it be done? I believe it could, but I also feel that it would take away from mental stimulation and traditional classrooom experience. Students and teachers can communicate via the internet, but that takes away from having a full on eye-to-eye conversation where you can read someone's emotion or see their reaction upon learning something valuable. One school I sub at in Dare County seems to base its entire curriculum on Apex Learning which is mostly on the computer. I don't know the reason why, maybe it's to help these students learn at a more comfortable pace, but in my opinion it takes away the teacher's role. If a teacher becomes less involved with the actual instruction of the student, then their purpose as a mentor or a role model is diminished, because the student is getting their information from a screen instead of from human interaction. To me this degrades the classroom setting, and it is something that I hope never fully comes to pass.
Bibliography:
1. Morrison, G., & Lowther, D. (2010). Integrating computer technology into the classroom: skills for the 21st century . (4th Edition ed., p. 30, Chapter 2). Pearson.
2. Laverty, M., De Marzio, D. & Grinberg, J. (2006). Common Questions & Disparate Voices: A Philosophical Conversation on Education. (Custom Edition for Montclair State University) Pearson
3. Husman, J., Brem, S. & Duggan, M.A. (2005). Student Goal Orientation and Formative Assessment. Academic Exchange Quarterly 2005, University of Arizona.
http://www.rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/5oct3047l5.htm
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