Innovating Technology

What technology innovations are being tried in contemporary elementary schools?

            Meyer et al. (2011) found that 16 Canadian teachers who implemented electronic portfolios in their elementary classrooms experienced growth in their teaching practice and used more pedagogical practices that support self-regulated learning as a result of the scaffolding provided by the software.  Electronic portfolios can serve as a tool for teachers and students to interact and to help students self-regulate their own learning.  Students can organize their work within their electronic portfolios and use them to publish their work.  Teachers can make an electronic portfolio available to students that contains examples of the kind of work they expect from their students.  Electronic portfolios can also be used as a summative assessment tool of each student’s work.

            Warren, Dondlinger, & Barab (2008) felt that two major obstacles to using problem-based learning methods with a digital learning environment in elementary school classrooms were the time it takes to design such a learning environment and the time required for students to interact at their own pace with badly designed problems used to spur student writing.  They conducted a study to explore whether elementary student writing could be improved by using game elements along with problem based learning in a digital learning environment.  They found that students in fact did increase their voluntary writing, improved their standardized achievement scores on writing tasks, and teachers spent less time answering questions.

            Sadik (2008) performed a study that aimed to help Egyptian teachers incorporate technology in their classrooms by having their students produce their own digital stories using MS Photo Story.  Students were introduced to desktop production and editing tools and were able to share their digital stories with one another.  To determine the effectiveness of this activity on student learning, the teachers assessed their students’ stories using a digital story evaluation rubric and interviews were performed with students to judge the extent to which they were engaged in authentic learning tasks using the digital storytelling.  Sadik’s study concluded that in spite of a few issues reported by the teachers, digital storytelling projects can increase students’ understanding of curricular content.

            All three of these are great ways to integrate technology into one’s classroom but I found the digital storytelling activity used by Egyptian teachers to be the most interesting.  I would never think of Egypt as being the front-runner in technology integration in their elementary schools but this just proved that I need to be more open-minded.  Maybe we should be focusing on introducing technology integration to elementary schools in other nations so that we can better interact with them in the future.

Meyer, E.J., Abrami, P.C., Wade, A. & Scherzer, R. (2011). Electronic portfolios in the classroom: factors impacting teachers’ integration of new technologies and new pedagogies. Technology, Pedagogy and Education 20(2): 191-207.

Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: a meaningful technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning. Educational Technology Research and Development 56: 487-506.

Warren, S.J., Dondlinger, M.J. & Barab, S.A. (2008). A MUVE Towards PBL Writing: Effects    of a Digital Learning Environment Designed To Improve Elementary Student Writing. Journal of Research on Technology in Education 41(1): 113-140.