A handy tool for looking at where we are in using technology in our classrooms is called Grappling's Technology & Learning Spectrum. A one-page version is here. It divides experience into three categories: Literacy uses, adapting uses and transforming uses.
This is just part of the work of Bernajean Porter. Her down-to-earth approach offers many opportunities for discussion and assessment. Good stuff!
Where do you think your school is on this continuum?
clever story, thought provoking, could easily be used in classrooms grades 6-12 about choices and about technology.
ReplyDeleteGrappling's list is full of judgmental statements. It articulates exemplary practice fairly well, but there is no use at all in articulating (ridiculing, really) non-exemplary practices. It reminds me of the early stages of standards work, where teachers create a rubric, and describe beautifully the last column (meets or exceeds the standards) and then put in the other "not quite there" columns with pejorative descriptors. Saying where you want to go is important. Ridiculing "bad" practice only sets up barriers to change.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joe . . I had never quite thought of it in that way before. Of course, any of these models of movement necessarily have a bias based on the perspective of what good education is all about. That Grappling's has a student-centered, constructivist bias doesn't mean it is ridiculing "bad" practice, does it? Isn't it simply laying out a direction according to what it values?
ReplyDeleteHelp me to understand . . . what would be the examples of ridicule?
Interesting, Joe. You've got me thinking on this one. Do you feel the same about the "Roadmap" (Puentedura)?