[I’m one of five Digital Pedagogy Faculty Fellows this year at the University of Colorado Denver. I’ll be sharing my thoughts all year on this experience, starting with my time at the Digital Pedagogy Lab in Vancouver, Canada.]
Just a quick thought…
In K-12, we struggle with access. Most schools are trying to get more technology into their classrooms. It’s not a given yet that students will have regular access to digital tools and adequate bandwidth in their learning spaces. That said, most schools have expectations of teachers that they will integrate technology into learning experiences whenever they can and provide often-mandatory professional learning for instructors on how to do that with the students in their classrooms.
It seems to me that the opposite is usually true in higher education. Bandwidth is pretty robust on most postsecondary campuses and most students are bringing computers of some sort with them to college. Access seems to be less of an issue. That said, institutional expectations of instructors for technology integration in classrooms are fairly low. Professional learning opportunities for faculty are mostly invitational rather than mandatory and tend to focus more on moving courses online than on how to use technology with students in face-to-face classroom settings.
In short, access and expectations regarding usage are flipped:
Agree? Disagree? What is your experience?
Why do you think expectations for instructor/ student usage is higher in K12?
I know that expectations vary widely from school to school. But most schools and districts at least invest in some professional learning for technology integration, occasionally mandate attendance at those PD sessions, and have occasional conversations between instructional coaches, technology integrationists, principals, and teachers about ways to use technology in classrooms. Those K-12 institutional signals and cues may be weak in many places, but I don’t even see those in most higher ed institutions…
Your thoughts?
Higher education treats the instructors as the experts, not idiots.
Having taught both Secondary and University level the difference the the treatment by the administration could not be more different. At the University level, the instructors choose what methods and resources they feel are appropriate, K-12 they are told “you must do this” whether or not it is appropriate for the topic (perfect example: Reading/Writing across the curriculum. Being told that you should have a writing assignment that week, regardless of what subject or topic you are teaching)
I had two student observers(from the local University science education program) in my classroom when a principal came in with one of those typical directives, after which I told the students “and that is why we cannot be administrators.” They inquired “Why?” I said “because we would not go into the foreign language classrooms and tell them how to teach their classes”
not a good idea “more technology into their classrooms”
in long term you should focus on basic education
take a look
http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/
any way nice work)
I see this problem in our district. The technology available in the classroom can’t keep up with the policies of integrating technology use in the schools. We also lack training, but again are required to use technology.
In some districts technology is still far behind. In my district for example technology means having an old laptop a projector and an old document camera. Well at least in my district I feel that we are left on our own when it comes to utilizing technology. There is no training, no basic information.