Summary of chapter 1 wrong relationship between teachers and technology

  The hierarchy mindset of medium means that there is an imperceptible scale-classifying cognition between new medium like computer and existed ones like paper or radio, it’s influenced by an assumption that the newest media performs much better than old ones in some high-level practical areas like instruction. People want to find the best medium to implement into education in order to augment efficiency of teaching, so they always ask a question that if the new mediums or technology could replace teacher in classroom when they became prevalent. But actually, there is no obvious difference in instruction between various medias in recent media comparison studies.

  We should abandon this wrong cognitive orientation and turn to the ecosystem mindset of medium and technology which means that an effective learning environment consists of a variety of media, we don’t need to compare different media in educational implementing because each media in ecosystem of instruction has its own niche and its own role to play. What we need to consider is that how to incorporate different medias appropriately in different parts of instruction to maximize the efficiency of teaching. For instance, using computer for exploring online resources is much more convenient and faster than searching in library, but computer can’t provide enough detailed information as real book about special subject like chemistry or physics.

  As Levy and Murnane (2013) argued in their books, “let computers do what they are good at, and humans should be trained to do what computer don’t do”. (page 13) Computers are just substitution for humans to do some repetitive and routine tasks, not replacement of human because they can’t think and have their own mind although they can do some deeper learning from human now, they still need received correct instructions from human and run as preset logical procedures otherwise they will get into trouble if they received an unpredicted response from human in new unstructured conditions. So computers can’t replace teachers in classroom anymore because they can’t manage and organize learning resources, use different strategies to benefit for students’ learning and communicate with students like teachers.

  But it doesn’t mean computers are useless in instruction, they can perform well on mechanical repetitive tasks, creative ways of presentation and interaction, and opportunities to promote learning. (page 16).

  For example, if a teacher wants to reinforce primary students’ learning on addition and subtraction, he can just provide an online tutoring software link for students to practice what they have learned and he doesn’t need spend time on designing exercise himself. The preset procedure of game can generate different exercise automatically when students click the starting button and send validity feedback to them when they finished a question, it could also ask students if they want to continue the exercise. Teacher needn’t worry about some lazy students who don’t want to do exercise because the software can send students’ scores automatically.

  As well, using computer and a projector to present an animation about the process of chemical combination reaction works much better for students to understand and remember the whole process than the sole lecture or experiment demonstration given by teacher in classroom. Computers do provide many efficient ways for teachers to present learning resources for reinforcement of students’ understanding and applying than traditional board or illustrations. Now, many teachers are getting more similar with PowerPoint or Keynote to make a better presentation in classroom than “board and eraser” decades before.

  And computer also performs well on personalizing learning experiences. Still talking about the online tutoring software I mentioned before, teachers can easily track students’ progress in exercising by analyzing data collected from software and rearrange different level of learning resources and implement diverse strategies in teaching to fit students’ personal learning needs in terms of feedback.

  Because of the convenience and practicability, class and learning management system like Google classroom, Weebly and other educational applications are becoming more and more powerful and prevalent in education. But teachers need consider seriously to the forefront about how to use these technologies to benefit their particular teaching before they decided to use technologies.

  “They have to be equipped with appropriate content and pedagogical knowledge to connect their teaching and learning tools and the affordances and constrains of these tools.” (page 22) That is, they have to think critically based on pedagogy about technologies they wonder and the content they want to teach. And this is one of the major reason that technologies can’t replace teacher anymore. After all, technologies can’t evaluate themselves if they are valuable for teaching. As well, technologies can’t smile to students when they get a great discovery or communicate with students when they get into trouble on learning.

  “If we consider the learning environment as an ecosystem, teachers and technology are two different agencies occupying specific niches, serving different purposes for learners.” It’s the real and correct relationship between teachers and technology, teachers can’t be replaced by technology and vice versa. And the flipped classroom where students learn lessons at home and do “homework” in class with a teacher’s help (page 27) is a typical example of teacher-powered learning ecosystem that integrate the strengths of teachers and technologies.

  In this classroom model, teachers and technologies supplement each other with their own affordance but teachers play an essential role that they provide course instruction and content videos for students to learn when they return home, scaffold each student’s learning and implement diverse strategies to meet different needs, provide necessary guidance to students who have problems in learning and track students’ learning progress and give feedback to them. But it doesn’t mean that the flipped classroom is teacher-centered. In contrast, it’s a typical student-center classroom that teachers and technologies both serve students’ learning.