Integrating Technology into the Middle School Classroom

Figure 1.

Technology and Learning

When students are communicating daily through modern technology, the scope of language arts broadens to encompass the digital medium. Janice R. Walker, Assistant Professor of Writing and Linguistics at Georgia Southern University, challenges teachers not to think of technology as "a barrier to literacy" (thirdwave.html) just because these students are not reading the classics and composing essays while online. Teachers, she says, should use the technology to encourage and develop literacy, perhaps guiding the students to become savvy manipulators of the technology itself (thirdwave.html).

Before making the decision to incorporate technology into classroom instruction, teachers must establish educational value of the technology. After all, rewriting lessons is time-consuming and purchasing computers is costly. Moreover, teachers cannot eliminate present objectives because administrators and parents expect students to succeed on standardized tests and writing performance measurements. Will technology integration benefit the language arts teacher in fulfilling existing goals as well as promoting digital literacy?

Marcy P. Driscoll, Professor and Chair, Educational Psychology and Learning Systems at Florida State University, Past-President of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, and author of Psychology of Learning for Instruction, suggests that technology can support instruction based upon four broad principles of learning (Driscoll, 2002):

Learning occurs in context.

Through computers, students can experience the real world--meeting the author, visiting the setting of a novel, etc.--or a simulation of the real world context.

Learning is active.

When students become mentally involved in learning activities, they begin generating ideas and constructing meaning on their own. Computers enable students to work with information and to communicate with others.

Learning is social.

Using the Internet, students can collaborate on lessons, post ideas on a topic, and read and respond to the notes of others.

Learning is reflective.

When students receive feedback about their thinking, learning is facilitated. It does not matter whether the feedback comes from a teacher or a peer in a chat room.

(Driscoll, 2002)

Based upon these four principles of learning, bringing technology into the classroom has the protential for promoting student achievement. The social and interactive aspects that connectivity to the Internet adds, combined with the possibility of moving learning into a real-world experience, more than compensate for the time involved for teachers to rework lessons and for the expense to school systems for additional hardware and software.

Technology on the Horizon

If language arts teachers are going to integrate technology into lesson plans, which technologies do we choose and which do we choose first? Do we focus on hardware or software? Do we teach Web page design or research using online databases?

To help answer these questions, I go to The Horizon Report--2005, researched and written by experts in business, industry, education, current research and practice, and published resources, who have determined six areas of technology to be forthcoming. The study, which is a cooperative effort of the New Media Consortium and the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative, an Educause program, sees the following technologies spreading to campuses of higher education in the next one to five years. Secondary teachers will do well to look toward these technologies to prepare our students to succeed in college.

Extended Learning (6): traditional instruction aided with communication tools, including Web-based resources, online learning activities, cell phones, Instant Messaging, digital cameras, blogs, and wikis. Course materials and student communication can be accessible twenty-four hours a day.
Ubiquitous Wireless (9): widespread access to wireless connectivity. Communications from cell phones, laptops, and palm devices will take place without the land lines.
Intelligent Searching (12): finding information on the Internet and keeping track of it. Already Google and Blinkx offer sophisticated search services: Google Scholar and Google Suggest. Google Desktop and Blinkx manage and retrieve information.
Educational Gaming (15): virtual reality video games and simulations--even purely text-based simulations. Problem solving and cooperation will be benefits of gaming. Not all subjects lend themselves to gaming, but for those that do, there is the potential for students to spend more time playing than they would reading subject material.
Social Networks and Knowledge Webs (18): workspaces where individuals can interact synchronously and/or asynchronously, contribute work, and see and react to the work of others. As the workspaces develop, they become knowledge webs--bodies of information constructed by the group during work.
Context-Aware Computing/Augmented Reality (21): context clues, such as date, time of day, user's location, objects or people nearby, are fed into the computer to aid in decision-making. Augmented reality overlays virtual information onto a real-life scene, helpful for vocational training and for enriching arts education classes.

The Horizon Report--2005

These six technologies listed by The Horizon Report--2005 are currently being practiced in business, industry, research, and education, and show promise of becoming more commonly used. These technologies make learning social, interactive, reflective, and in real-world context, satisfying Driscoll's four principles of learning. By examining what the experts predict to be emerging trends in technology, teachers can begin choosing wisely the technologies to write into lesson plans.

Technology in the Clasroom

Since technology can support instruction and experts (and common sense) indicate that technology will become more and more a common part of our daily lives, is there anything middle school language arts teachers can do to move students forward into the digital age?

Walker says that teachers should assist students in understanding how the hardware, the software, the form and the content come together to communicate the author's message. She adds, "Whether we write for digital or print publication, every word and sentence should contribute something, and every additional element--from line spacing to the use of animated graphics, video, or sound files--must also serve a purpose and contribute to the meaning" (goals.html). Thus,

TECHNOLOGY NEEDS TO BE IN THE HANDS OF THE STUDENTS.

To get the students to think about the message and the medium, teachers need to get technology into the hands of the students. When composing the message, students should begin to think about these (and similar) questions:

What technology will be used to deliver/access my message? (Walker, 2002)
Is the point made quickly, concisely, and clearly? (Trupe, 1997)
Will readers navigate easily through the text? (Trupe, 1997)
Is the presentation visually appealing?
Does the message invite a response? (Trupe, 1997)
Have appropriate references been made to ensure intellectual property rights? (Walker, 2002)

Language arts teachers will be helping equip students for successful communications when students begin to think about the delivery mode as well as the message. The best way to accomplish this is to write using the technology which suits the purpose of the situation.

For teachers and students to use the technology, the technology has to become part of the curriculum, which brings up a second point:

TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE INTRODUCED INTO THE CURRICULUM IN A SYSTEMATIC WAY.

Just as other learning objectives are scheduled to be introduced, mastered, and reviewed at specific grade levels, student usage of technologies should be taken seriously and planned into the school program. Each school year, groundwork in computers and other technologies should be laid so that new technology skills can be built upon them. The result would be students who are more capable of delivering and accessing information through modern technologies.

Teachers Helping Students To Use Technology

Many teachers are already bringing technology into classrooms and putting it into the hands of the students. In a newspaper article from The Detroit News, a reporter, Janet Sugameli, relates how a middle school language arts teacher allows students to use digital video equipment in his classes (Sugameli, 2005).

Sugameli reports that Jason Frieling, an English teacher at Romeo Middle School in the Detroit area, writes lessons in which eighth grade students use a digital video camera to gain insight into literary works. Instead of doing the traditional essay analysis to To Kill a Mockingbird, students were instructed to create a video interpretation of the quest for justice using the digital video camera, digital editing units, and supportive hardware and software. Students said that they wer motivated to pour a lot of effort into analyzing the book in order to produce a video that fellow students would see and enjoy. They described the project to Sugameli as being a lot more interesting and easier for everyone to relate to because of the video presentation. Frieling states that he has had students who do not like to write a paper participate by acting out a story for the camera (2005).

Another example of a teacher bringing technology into the classroom with the intention of putting it into the hands of the students is Christine Nelson, an elementary technology education teacher at Hailey Elementary School in Hailey, Idaho, who has authored an article entitled "Web Sites: The Tech Ed Link with Language Arts" (2004). The emphasis of her article is sharing Web sites which allow students to conduct the research and use online interactive activities, such as Internet searching, building satellites or robots, mapping the brain, speculating about the future of space travel, to reading for information on a Web page. The students "man" the computers and gain digital skills.

There are ways for language arts teachers to write technologies into lesson plans. Until the curriculum mandates grade level instruction of technologies, the best suggestion is to become familiar with the hardware and software available on your campus and with the school policies regulating students' use of the hardware and software. Then start integration of technology with a skill that you are personally very comfortable with, making certain that lesson objectives relate to the subject and the technology.

Getting Help with Technology Implementation

Getting the students to think about the technology as well as the message and systematically introducing student use of technologies into the middle school classroom are worthy goals. Can teachers find help?

In a paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Heidi Schnackenberg reported a major problem that teachers have in integrating technology into lesson plans is lack of time to develop or even modify plans and teaching units (1999). Teachers' days are not going to slow down. We need help identifying Web sites in which realistic technology integration lessons have been evaluated and categorized by content and grade level. These sites must then be communicated to teachers.

To compound the problem of lack of time to search and evaluate technology lesson plans, teachers do not have the luxury of unlimited resources. Corey Murray's headline article of the March 2005 eSchool News reads, "Ed-tech funding in jeopardy: $500M federal program on chopping block" (1). In looking at the 2006 budget, President Bush has asked Congress to cut more than $1 Billion in total education spending, eliminating entirely the $500 million Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) state block-grant program, the primary source of federal funding for school technology (1). Proponents of the cuts are arguing that most schools are farther along on the technology curve than they were several years ago when the grant was established and that educators can find technology funding elsewhere in the federal budget. But are schools where they need to be concerning technology implementation? Melinda George, executive director of State Educational Technology Directors Association, describes the budget cut proposals as devastating. She encourages educators to voice their opinions about money for technology implementation to their Congressmen because Congress has the final say on the budget (21).

Challenge to Teachers

To meet the needs of students in the middle school language arts classroom, teachers must move students beyond the written word to consider the technology needed to transmit the message. Educating students to be capable of choosing and manipulating technologies for communication should not be left to chance, but should instead be the result of a systematic consideration of those technologies. Students are already communicating through technologies. To say that language arts teachers have prepared them for successful communications outside school, teachers must open their eyes to new technologies and work diligently to introduce or develop in the students the skills needed to be confident in the message they have to communicate as well as the medium in which they communicate.

Appendix

Technology Survey of Students on Team 7-3 at Appling County Middle School

Directions: Please answer the following questions thoughtfully and honestly. The findings will be presented in a college paper and will be available upon request.

	Yes	No
1. Do you have a computer in your home:	45	5
2. Is the computer connected to the Internet?	41	9
3. Are you allowed to use the computer:	48	2
4. Do you use a word processor?	45	5
5. Do you use a printer?	42	8
6. So you check an e-mail address?	33	17
7. Do you know how to type Web addresses?	46	4
8. Do you know how to search for topics on the Internet?	48	2
9. Do you have a cell phone you can use?	37	13
10. Can you text message someone?	26	23
11. Check things you have used online:

chat rooms	36
weather forecasts	28
writing/sending e-mail	39
shopping online (with a parent)	25
research/libraries	36

12. What else can you telll me about your use of the computer and/or other new technology? play games, download music and pictures, listen to CD's, burn CD's and DVD's, Instant Message friends, chat rooms, message boards, save and e-mail pictures from digital camera

[Back]

References

Driscoll, M. P. (2002, October). How people learn (and what technology might have to do with it). Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse. (ERIC #ED40032).
Murray, C. (2005, March). Ed-tech funding in jeopardy: $500M federal program on chopping block. eSchool News, 1, 21.
Nelson, C. (2004, December). Web sites: the tech ed link with language arts. Technology and Children, 9, 7. Published by International Technology Education Association. ProQuest (ID #776098051). http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=776098051&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientid=30291&RQT=309&VName=PQD (26 Feb. 2005)
New Media Consortium. The Horizon Report. (2005). National Learning Infrastructure Initiative. Educause. http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/CSD3737.pdf (14 April 2005).
Schnackenberg, H. L., Asumcion, J., Rosler, D. (1999). The education forum: A web-based resource for teachers. Paper presented at the Annual Convention of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, Houston, TX, February 10-14, 1999. ED 429 552 IR 019 461.
Sugameli, J. (2005, February 21). Technology sparks classes. The Detroit News Schools. http://www.detnews.com/2005/schools/0502/22/B05-95404.htm (26 Feb. 2005).
Trupe, A. L. (1997). Academic literacy in a wired world: What should a literate student text look like? The Writing Instructor, 16, 113-125. Los Angeles. ProQuest (ID #44341956). http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=44341956&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientid=30291&RQT=309&VName=PQD (26 Feb. 2005).
Walker, J. R. (2002). The third wave: Yes, but can they write? Kairos, 7. http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.3/coverweb/kiwi/thirdwave.html (26 Feb. 2005).

[Top]

Volume 2, Issue 2

Spring, 2005