In the article “Teachers, not Technicians”, the authors focus on some keys school districts should follow to help teachers integrate technology effectively into their classrooms. The author’s main criticism of many school districts is that the focus is on how to use the technology and troubleshoot problems rather than how to develop better curriculum.
My classmates and I have some interesting thoughts on these suggestions. First, some kind of technical training must be done to simply allow teachers to navigate the new software or hardware. This could be done in a variety of ways such as a video presentation, written steps or a live tutorial. The majority of time and funding training teachers to use the new technology should go toward integrating it into the curriculum.
The Kent School District has this opportunity. Thanks to a recent technology levy, all incoming 7th graders are being given personal laptop computers to use for the school year. The laptops will follow those 7th graders through middle school and into high school. In five years time, all students from grades 7-12 will have laptops. This will mark a significant change in classroom instruction and the school district should follow the advice of the researchers. Rather than showing teachers how to troubleshoot laptops, time should be spent giving examples of how to use the laptops to enhance curriculum. In a science classroom for example, probeware such as Vernier could be used with the laptops to gather, analyze and graph data from lab experiments. Students would be much better served if troubleshooting was left to technicians and teachers were allowed to teach their curriculum.
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- This classroom is lacking technology integration.
Posted by ryanewest 
