There is a great deal of conversation about technology integration. However, few practicing teachers profess to know exactly how to proceed in the area of technology integration. The fact is that real integration requires change… What seems to be absent is a model that teachers can use to steer them through the necessary changes they will need to make to be successful in integrating new technologies into their classroom. Technology integration is not a subject area, nor is it a curriculum: it is an instructional strategy. Technology is an instructional tool; using it in an integrative fashion is an instructional strategy. As such, it is not added to the curriculum; it is a tool for delivering subject matter already in place within the curriculum. It is a tool for accessing, organizing, managing, analyzing, incorporating and evaluating information. It is a tool for developing new understandings and communicating. It is the tool of the 21st century to be used by teachers and students in their teaching and learning.
New Reporting Requirement
The federal government has set a goal that all states will have technology fully integrated into curriculum, instruction and professional development by the year 2010. They will be requiring LEAs to report on their "Integrated Technology Status" annually. A cadre of educators and technology coordinators will be working during the 2008/09 school year to develop a clear definition of what Technology Integration is and what it means for students and teachers in Rhode Island classrooms. Please contact the Holly Walsh if you are interested in contributing to the process.
The Technology Integration Matrix, produced by Florida’s Center for Instructional Technology, was developed to help guide the complex task of evaluating technology integration in the classroom. Short vignettes demonstrate what technology integration actually looks like at different levels of sophistication within different learning environments. Rhode Island teachers may want to use the Matrix to generate talking points in their own self evaluation as a comprehensive model of technology integration is developed.
Technology Education vs. Educational Technology
Clarification between the terms “Technology Education” and “Educational Technology” has become necessary in the education realm. Technology education focuses on skills and concepts related to the scientific and engineering world, design processes, technological products and systems, and the use of tools. Instructional or educational technology involves the ability to use, manage, assess, and understand technology. It involves knowledge about what technology is, how it works, what purposes it can serve, and how it can be used efficiently and effectively to achieve specific goals across all curricular areas. Another important component of instructional or educational technology is the inclusion of the use of technology to facilitate communication.
Standards
The Rhode Island Department of Education recommends the use of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for determining what students, teachers, and administrators should know and be able to do in order to effectively use technology within our schools. Awareness of the standards that students, teachers, and administrators are being held to is a necessary condition in the successful integration of technology in all classrooms. It is assumed that teachers, administrators and staff members in Rhode Island’s school districts will be committed to learning how technology can contribute to their ever-increasing productivity and to steadfastly incorporate technology into all aspects of their work, as appropriate, as we prepare our students for life in the 21st century.
Statewide Curriculum
Teachers participating in E2T2 will be developing technology infused lessons and tasks across all curricular areas during the summer of 2008. Those lessons are searchable on the E2T2
Rhode Island Teachers in Technology (RITTI) site. Viewers will note different levels of sophistication and learning environments as in the Technology Matrix. Exemplar lessons will be added to the Statewide Curriculum site.