simply a label

Robeert Bain, in the 5th chapter of Meaningful Learning Using Technology discusses the problem with big professional development terms such as "deep understanding" and meaningful Learning." He says that "These ideas run the risk of becoming mere expressions that stand for much, but provide little substance for the practitioners who must figure out how to achieve such lofty goals. Ironically, schools might be adopting "meaningful understanding" and "deep understanding" without engaging in the substantive conversations and investigations that promote deep meaning and understanding about these ideas themselves."

I have sen this happen in multiple schools. But I don't think this concept ends just with ideas and catchy terms. Schools might say that their students participate in meaningful learning without all of the teachers having a shared understanding of what meaningful learning is. In the same way, schools almost all claim they are regularly incorporating technology in to the classroom. But what does this mean? In my first school where I taught it seriously meant using power points to teach the students. That is all the admin was looking for in the way of tech integration. But what does it mean in different schools and what does it mean to different teachers in a single school?

As my school seems to be moving in the direction of a one-to-one laptop situation I ask myself what does each teacher think about tech integration. Some see simple powerpoints as engaging projects while others see classes creating podcasts as something worthwhile. Should all work be done on a cloud computing service like Google docs? Should the school have a shared platform like Blackboard that all teachers use? Is Blackboard effective enough to do everything? The questions could go on forever, and schools have to ask themselves these kinds of questions every few months. If they fail to do this, they will be teaching their students using methods that are no longer applicable to the use of technology in the real world. Not only do they have to evaluate where they stand on what technology to use and how to use it, but they must be communicating this information to all teachers and observing that all teachers are following the current and best agreed-upon practices. Yikes.

It's easy for a school to throw a sticker on their curriculum that says "with integrated technology"
but it is hard to make sure that it is more than just a label which means nothing.


References:
Alexander, E., & Floden, R. (2006). Meaningful Learning Using Technology. New York: Teachers College Press.