Technology Inside and Outside the Classroom

Educational Technology Research
In order to ensure we as teachers are reaching all of our students and making positive impacts, it is important that we collect data and analyze research.  For instance, the use of technology plays a crucial role in the classrooms; therefore, we need to guarantee it is being incorporated into the classroom meaningfully.  There are a variety of educational technology research reports available that help teachers, parents, students, administration, and community members become aware of the many benefits of technology and areas that can be improved upon.  Below are great resources that can be used to analyze educational technology.

Project Tomorrow Speak Up

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This organization gathers opinions about the use of technology in education.  From the 2017 and 2018 report, I found the following statistics to be surprising:

• 56% of parents are concerned their child is not learning the correct skills to be successful in their future jobs or college
• 36% of parents say they learn school information from word of mouth and 24% of parents use the school website to obtain information 
• 19% of parents with high school students are satisfied with teacher-to-home communication

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I believe that 56% is a high percentage of parents to be concerned about their children not being prepared for their next stage in life after high school.  In addition, I believe there is a high percentage of parents learning about school information from word of mouth, especially with the amount of technology that is available to make this information more readily available.  Lastly, the low percentage of parents satisfied with teacher-to-home communication is eye opening.  Since I work at a high school, this statistic made me realize there needs to be a better way to stay in contact with parents.  It can be more difficult at the high school level since teachers have over 100 homes to contact, but there needs to be a system in place to make communicate more available. 

New Media Consortium Report 

This educational report provides examples of technology that should and will be used in the near future.  Below are examples of teaching methods and tools that were provided in the report:

Civil War Battlefield

• Deeper learning approaches through project-based learning, personalized learning, and performance assessments
• An example of deeper learning provided discussed the Arkansas Arts Academy partnering with a national park to explore a Civil War battlefield.  The students used metal detectors and tagged objects with GPS coordinates
• Redesigning learning places through the use of light, power, energy, biophilic design, and flexible seating

Coding as literacy

Biophilic Designed Classroom

Common Sense Media

Math Application

This organization provides ratings and reviews of movies, games, apps, websites, TV shows, books, and music.  It was very interesting exploring this website in order to become more familiar with a variety of resources that are available to children and adults to promote learning.  It is an easy to use site that allows parents and students to search for media sources by age, devise, pricing structure, subject, skill level, and topics.  In addition, Common Sense Media is very beneficial for teachers.  While examining the reports I found many applications and websites that I would like to incorporate into my classroom and promote for students to use in order to increase their engagement on certain topics. 

SAT Application

English Application

Pew Interest

The Pew Interest Research Center collected information about teens, social media, and technology.  It was interesting to read this information because it made me realize how fast technology and even social media changes as new applications become popular.  Below are some statistics I found either interesting or surprising:

• 95% of teens have smartphones and 45% of teens stated that they use the Internet on a near constant basis. I did not find it surprising that most teens have a smartphone, but the fact that they are on the Internet on a constant basis is very surprising and makes me want to continue to conduct research on the effects of being online that often. 
• 51% of teens use Facebook.  I knew that this percentage has decreased in recently years, but I still find this interesting because when I was a teenager almost all teens had Facebook.  This shows that technology is constantly changing and educators need to be aware of changes in order to promote active learning.
• 24% of teens believe social media has a negative impact. As one 13 year old boy stated in the report, social media has a negative impact because it "gives people a bigger audience to speak and teach hate and belittle each other." (Boy, age 13).  

Social Media Impact