Just what is tech-integration?

In the context of a high school English class, tech-integration is both the everyday use of technology to enhance and expand the resources of a learning community and the constructivist approach to teaching and learning.

• Click here for a definition of constructivism.

•  Click here and find out if you are a “preliterate end-user”, a “software technician”, an “electronic traditionalist” or a “techno-constructivist"

• Let's Put the Pedagogy First: Technology as a Tool to Support Instruction  

Where can I find on-line resources to help me integrate technology?

• Technology Integration Made Easy - some great ideas for the teacher just beginning to integrate technology.
• Technology in the Classroom Center - the main site for all tech-integration articles from Education World.

Is tech-integration “best practice”? Will it mean that I stop teaching English and teach PowerPoint instead?  

• Why should I care about tech-integration? A look at NCLB and Research.

  • Technology Integration, Assessment and No Child Left Behind - enhancing education through technology is part of the No Child Left Behind Act. This article from Education World explains this connections and provides links to help you learn more.
  • The Digital Disconnect: The widening gap between Internet-savvy students and their schools- an amazing article that is part of the Pew Internet & American Life project.
  • The Impact of Education Technology on Student Achievement: What the Most Current Research Has to Say - a great report with all kinds of facts and figures to support your repeated requests for more technology in your school and in your classroom.

   

  A computer is a tool for teaching English. English teachers teach English not computers. As an eleventh grade English teacher, I have never encountered a student who was not at least functionally literate (able to use programs for word processing, multi-media presentations and desktop publishing) with computers. Of course, I never force a student to use technology. The goal is always for the student to be engaged in the lesson. If  a student would prefer to write with a paper and pen, then the student may do so. 

   When an English teacher makes a pedagogical shift from a more traditional teaching style where the teacher drives the learning (as in notes, lectures and multiple choice tests) to a constructivist teaching style where the students drive the learning (as in reading journals, portfolios, multi-genre papers and multi-media responses to texts in essay form) then that teacher has created a learning environment that reflects “best practice”.

  •   Click here to read the NCTE’s “Position on the Teaching of English: Assumptions and Practices” 

  •  Click here to read the NCTE’s “Standards for the English Language Arts”