Innovation Through Technology

Rethinking how students learn

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After reading Cheryl Lemke article: InnovationThrough Technology, it is very clear to me why do our schools need to embrace the innovation of visualization, democratization of knowledge and participatory cultures of learning. Lemke present a variety of data, sources and examples, always revealing and supporting that technology has become a very important piece of our students and our own lives’. If we live in this highly packed of visual information and technology surrounding, we as teachers need to transport it to our classrooms.

Making reference to the first innovation, visualization, I think it is hard to perceive a student who is exposed constantly to visuals, videos, media, internet, interactive games…, to learn in an austere and static environment. Also it is very important to teach them in how to be “literate” to be involved in that surrounding. “They need to learn to become informed viewers, critics, thinkers and producers of multimedia. Just as there is grammar an syntax for text literacy, so there is for multimodal literacy”. (Lemke 243)

The second innovation we need to be aware of, is the democratization of knowledge, where teachers and students need to be aware that school is only a “slice” of the learning context available for our students. They learn all day long from different sources at home, practicing their hobbies, being connected through the Internet, so it is ours the responsibility in how to teach them to better browse in the internet, how to use it ethically and whom to trust. What a huge responsibility!

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The third innovation talks about participatory learning. Students are expected to be participants in virtual communities, and they are not only observers. We can mention some examples such as twitter, facebook, social bookmarkers, Painterest amongst many others. They can participate “socially” in these communities, but our challenge as teachers is to include it more and more as a resource in our daily teaching.

It is hard to decide which one of this innovations is more likely to be address in my classroom, I really enjoy using technology and virtual communication in my teaching but I think my biggest responsibility should be directing and constantly encouraging my students in ethically using the internet, in being conscious if their digital footprint. I have observed that they now the basic concepts, they have been taught in ways to look for reliable sources, (Destiny Quest as an example), but when they are in a hurry for information, they simple go to Gooogle and browse in the first sources displayed. It is a huge challenge and teachers need to work collaboratively and all of us be aware of the use of internet and the sources they are using. This will help them be more conscious, principled and ethical life long learners.