3.5: Basic Troubleshooting:
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Artifact
Internet Lesson Plan Reflection I developed an Internet Lesson Plan incorporating several web tools, school hardware, and school software for an advanced mathematics course in which students were struggling to learn and remember the content during application assessments. The web tools included Google Docs, Memrise.com, and YakIttoMe.com. The school hardware and software included laptops with the Snipping Tool application installed. Included in the lesson plan was a troubleshooting plan that addressed possible web tool, hardware, and software problems before and during the lesson. Because thorough preparation is critical to success and technology hiccups happen, my planning included ensuring that all laptops were fully charged and updated prior to implementation of the lesson. I also rehearsed logging in to the web tools on the collaborating teacher’s computer, ensured that the interactive white board was fully functional and communicating with the computer, and logged in on a student laptop prior to the lesson. I planned for extra laptops to be on hand and provided a link to a Word document for students to work in in case Google Docs experienced lag. During the session, I learned that no amount of preparation can preclude all potential technology problems. An unforeseen challenge presented itself during the logging in phase, and I was able to successfully troubleshoot it: students logging in to Memrise.com for the first time were required to follow a new series of steps that were different than those in my tutorial. Without much lost instructional time, I was able to walk them past the trouble and re-engage them in the spirit of the lesson. In the future, I will know to rehearse by logging in as a new user, in case web tool updates have caused changes in the procedure. During the lesson, it also became clear that students are unwilling to work through figuring out how to use technology for educational purposes at the beginning of class (Devlin, Feldhaus, & Bentrem, 2013), despite how often they figure out how to use social applications on their own or with friends. Research into this phenomenon could reveal that the ostracizing of technology in schools has created a divide between students and the educational potential of technology; this divide could theoretically be bridged through a welcoming of technology into more classrooms. Faculty development should emphasize, then, that the more students are exposed to use of technology for educational purposes, the less likely they are to use it simply as distraction. Survey results collected before and after a school’s staff fully accepts technology in the classroom could assess the impact of such a momentous move. References Devlin, T. J., Feldhaus, C. R., & Bentrem, K. M. (2013). The evolving classroom: A study of traditional and technology-based instruction in a STEM classroom. Journal Of Technology Education, 25(1), 34-54. |