When technology is used to support culturally and linguistically diverse students, it is often remedial. Some students find themselves using technology that has been designed for younger learners simply because the vocabulary level matches their current language acquisition. This type of remediation via technology can be frustrating to use. Imagine yourself living in another country, trying to learn its language, and being asked to learn via remedial software. What concerns would you have about this instructional approach? What other options might be found to avoid remediation when it is instructionally unnecessary?
There is no doubt this sounds extremely aggravating as an adult, so I could only imagine how bad it would be for a child. My main concern is that these students are not learning to their full potential due to the lack of technology. Students are capable of amazing things, such as learning a new language, but they can only go as far the equipment they are given to use. A person does not just learn an entire second language on their own in a necessary amount of time.
I believe the best option to avoid remediation is to keep things up to date and challenging to the students. While it may be frustrating at the time, it helps save them from taking much more frustrating routes to the same solution.
Chapter 5; Question 2:
Interview a network administrator to discover the issues he or she is most concerned with relating to school networks and network security. Be sure to ask what other issues are of concern with regard to keeping a school network operational. Summarize your interview questions and the responses to them. Explain how the network issues may affect the way in which you will use this technology in your classroom.
Network administrators are concerned with the lack of concern towards the equipment when it comes to children and teachers in the classrooms. What I mean by this is that they tend to be worried that the equipment is not being taken care of properly on a day-to-day basis physically. Most concerns from the network administrator's point of view are directed toward human error, rather than the systems and technology. They believe that the systems are set up well enough to be used for any purpose a teacher or student could need them for in a normal school setting and the only thing that would lead to error are the people using them. For example, a teacher has the ability to monitor computer screens from their desk, but is that what they are actually using the computer for during test?
Network issues that I most commonly know people running into revolve around the internet in an every day classroom. If the internet goes down on half of the computers, a teacher needs to have a back up plan (like paper and pencil). State testing on these computer systems has caused some issues in rooms I have proctored as well. Login issues and other software problems have prevented a student from taking their testing, thus making them make it up at another time.
Chapter 6; Question 3:
Select three stand-alone or peripheral technologies you are interested in and compare them using the technology evaluation rubric included in this chapter. After discussing the comparisons with your group, describe which you would buy and explain why. Be prepared to share your preferences and your reasons with the class.
The three technologies I have chosen are graphic tablets, electronic whiteboards and digital cameras due to my pre-existing knowledge with them. Because all three can be expensive, I will not make my choice about the cost. The most useful in the group for a teacher would be the electronic whiteboard. Set up is simple because you do not have to do the harder things like placing it on a wall and connecting to everything. You simply just have to understand how it works after the fact. While a think a digital camera is a more easily used tool by the entire population, I do not believe the whiteboard to be much harder once you start up. Cameras are only simple to use because most people in the 21st century have some experience with one or more. Whiteboards also take up less space because they are on the wall where a dry-erase board may be. As long as you are able to place the same information on the computer, the whiteboard should be able to replace most of the dry-erase board. I choose whiteboards, but would be interested in using graphic tablets with my students because of the software capabilities such as Adobe Suites and other graphic design programs.
Graphic Tablets, Electronic Whiteboards, Digital Camera