Article 6 Thinking Through the Technology Puzzle

Summary
David Bowman illustrates ,the Do's and Don'ts of technology in the classroom and why there is growing backlash over its use in education, in his 2004 article, "Thinking Trough the Technology Puzzle". He begins by explaining why people are up in arms over technology. It's because for all the money spent buying it for education there has been little change in student achievement. This may be due to the fact most teachers see it as yet another subject to teach not something to use to enhance what is already taught. Bowman goes on to give examples of poor uses of technology in the classroom like teaching technology skills instead of other subject areas, using technology to produce something students would normally create by other means, and most heinous of all using technology as a reward for completing "real work". Then he counters that with examples of how to use technology to question, explore, create, and analyze in specific content areas. For example Bowman suggests using satellite photos of locations in books or visit the city government websites to gain an understanding of the area and context of book.
Bowman suggests that educators and the public need to change our thinking in regards to technology to help students live and learn in the current age. One way thinking needs to change for educators is to promote professional development so that technology can integrated in teaching. This will take teachers learning the skills and working together is teams to support each others efforts to integrate technology. He ends by describing what a technology learning environment should look like and what policy makers need to do to enhance technology use.

Review
In my practicum and volunteering I have seen all of Bowman's examples of what not to do and few of the things teachers should be doing. I have to agree that teachers have a hard time finding authentic ways to bring technology into their curriculum as an enhancement, not a distraction. But I have hope for understanding to change about technology with courses like the one we are in now and school districts creating technology teams and training programs. For instance this year my son's classroom was studying Westward Expansion and the California Gold Rush and his teacher integrated creating an audio version of a readers theater "Off to California" into the unit. The students gained technology skills while enhancing their conceptual understandings of the historical era and created a reusable artifact. I believe this is the kind of authentic application of technology Bowman was advocating.

Bowman, D. (2004). Thinking through the technology puzzle. From Now On The Educational Technology Journal, 14(1), Retrieved from http://fno.org/oct04/integrating.html