The article, "After the Bell, Beyond," provides evidence for a number of the Essential Conditions for effective technology integration outlined in "Digital-Age Literacy for Teachers." The information has been organized into evidence for each essential condition.
(1) Shared Vision: Eric Langhorst acted as the monitor for the student blog entries. He reviewed all student posts and approved them before posting to ensure they were appropriate. Even the president of the school board got involved in the virtual book clubs.
(2) Access: Eric Langhorst has access to the internet, e-mail, a microphone, a CD burner, and Audacity, a free audio-editing program.
(3) Skilled Educators: Eric Langhorst has proved his technology skills in a number of ways. Using the resources he has available to him, Eric Langhorst was able to support the education of his students in a number of ways. He used the program Audacity, the internet, and a microphone to create the StudyCasts. The StudyCasts were made available online to the students. He also burned CDs for those students who did not have access to the Internet at home. He created virtual book clubs using blogger and e-mailed parents, experts, and authors to take part in the class projects.
(4) Professional Development: Eric Langhorst has met with fellow history teachers to discuss podcasting. Together, they created a collaborative podcast titled "Speaking of History."
(5) Technical Assistance: There is no evidence of technical assistance in "After the Bell, Beyond." Although I would assume he can fall back on his fellow history teachers, some of whom are more than likely computer savvy as evidenced by the collaborative podcast.
(6) Content Standards and Curriculum Resources: There is little direct evidence for content standards and curriculum resources. As previously mentioned, he has met with his fellow history teachers to discuss the integration of podcasts and together they created the collaborative podcast "Speaking of History." It would seem then that they meet to discuss the curriculum and resources. In addition, when e-mailed by a man from Spain who made Langhorst aware that he had not adequately described the contributions of the Spanish in the American Revolutionary War, Eric read the book suggest by the man and made an effort to describe both the French and Spanish contributions.
(7) Student-Centered Teaching: Eric Langhorst records 15-20 minute long StudyCasts to enable his students to better review for exams. Lance Huebner, a special education teacher in the building, recorded his narration of Guerrilla Season (with permission from the author) to help the students with reading disabilities.
(8) Assessment: Though the article does not provide any direct evidence of continuous assessment of the effectiveness of technology for learning, the article did mention that Eric and his fellow history teachers meet to describe class projects and suggest lesson plans. It is quite possible that they have discussed the effectiveness of technology for learning during these meetings as they did collaborative produce a podcast.
(9) Community Support: As previously mentioned Eric has received support from the special education teacher, other history teachers, as well as the president of the school board. Pat Hughes, the author of Guerilla Season, an 8th grade language arts class from California, a college professor in Louisiana, and a number of worldwide viewers participated in the virtual book club discussions. Eric's students participated in the Florida class's discussion, which was based off of his own class's discussion. Eric's class received support from the authors and experts on the Donner Party for their Oregon Trail project.
(10) Support Policies: There was no mention of school and university policies, financing, and rewards structures used to support technology in learning.
1 comment:
My take was very similar to yours. Langhorst himself appears to meet many of the conditions of technology integration. But it is not clear if he got any support, help, or encouragement from adminstrators. It does seem to have been a problem for him, but it might be for others.
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