Emerging Technology that Supports Content Learning (Blog Entry 2)

As I read the chapter Supporting Student Content Learning I began to relize how much my school reflects some of the points and how far we are from some of the other points. . I felt the explanation of the different types of knowledge was strangely familiar but didn’t know the labels places on these types of knowledge. I feel that having this understanding of the three types gives us a better picture of student learning. When I was a child we learned our basic math facts. This was the declarative knowledge. Today our students struggle with the facts because they are not asked to memorize them. I say this because my own children were not asked to memorize them but to explore patterns. When they got home we asked them to write the facts and play games with flash cards. We were then asked to solve problems that had multiple steps and we applied knowledge of what adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing did to our numbers to estimate answers before writing down our calculations. This structural knowledge allowed us to piece together information so we could eventually problem solve. Problem solving or performance standards utilize the procedural knowledge discussed by Egbert.

Now through the integration of technology we have enhanced each level of knowledge. To goal is to use the technology in the best manor. The book listed several ways to utilize computers in the classroom and labs. Unfortunately my school utilizes the incorrect ways. On the bright side my school has many teachers obtaining degrees in Instructional Technology and as time goes on hopefully these methods can be corrected. My system also seems dedicated to better integration of technology through Promethean boards, wiki spaces, podcast, and online lessons.

I also like to think that we are moving away from the idea that the use of technology will be fun for the students. We no longer load math games on the computers in order to get students to work independently on math. I related to the statement that student work does not always have to be fun. It does need to be engaging, interesting, and meaningful. I love my job, but it is not always fun; sometimes it is hard.
In addition, I feel that the workbook format of this book allows us to evaluate our own teaching on how well we incorporate content learning with our own technology integration.

Egbert, J. (2009). Supporting learning with technology: essentials of classroom practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc