Reflect on the use of digital technologies for communication in schools today. What are the opportunities/challenges/barriers? In what way can technology enhance not only school – community connection, but teaching and learning? How can we define tension point between when face to face is needed versus when technology is appropriate? Finally, in what ways has technology opened opportunities for underserved students and in what ways has it exacerbated barriers?
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As per discussion,
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Transcribed work,
COVID-19 will forever be a paradigm shift in technology and education. Prior to COVID-19 the question was surrounding the potentiality that technology in education may be inequitable. Since that point, developments surrounding teacher test base licensing of software and school funding/subsidization has changed the outlook of technology in the classroom. Barriers with technology have been built for over a decade to accommodate disabilities and poverty, but they are not built to protect education based stake-holders from themselves (computers and human nature), this is the current challenge.
The school I am currently working in, there is a great deal of discussion that surrounds the use of social media as a form of communication between students and teachers as well as when or how to unplug from technological communication. LMS's are sometimes too accessible and convenient which in turn develops a sense of never ending work days, and thus burn-out situations.
It feels like a discussion that has been occuring for a lengthy period of time and is still very much one that is based on "where" and "when" context. Technology in classrooms in Canada seem to welcome the opportunities to try software and technologies, where in many classrooms in China, it seems like it is a good thing up until it is “too much” of a good thing. Reflecting back on the introduction of PPT’s in class, in some cases classrooms were blessed to have a younger and tech savoy teacher to turn the lessons on Napoleon Bonaparte’s Conquest into a relatively interactive slideshow rather than the the transparent based film paper, with black and white text on it. Becoming a teacher myself, I quickly learned that PPT’s were/are an old gimmick. Its success and continued use is beneficial on many levels, but at the same time can be done and is done in many other ways. Point being, everyone does the same thing and then it becomes a matter of try to get past a sense of mundane attitude that had been developed through exposure of PPT’s based on lecture rather than engagement.
Going past PPT’s, came social media for all. Limiting or creating boundaries of our personal lives and those we work with or educate. We find ourselves now in the era of ChatGPT and advanced AI technologies, another gimmick that as teachers, may seem like is detrimental to our way of profession, but can be a blessing in disguise. Opportunities come from the application of our cognitive leadership resources that we as leaders in classrooms, schools and communities, anticipate and develop to integrate into our practice and profession.
In cases based on isolation and lack of exposure to extended learning resources, ChatGPT might be an opportunity to close the knowledge gap that teachers may feel challenges them in a new teaching area of their experience, or even for students who feel there are still questions that they would like to have answered. Examples of overcoming communication obstacles go as far as the EQAO presenting data in a single place for all stakeholders to access and observe. Morever considering discussions on MFIPPA and FIPPA, technology is an effective manner in ensuring that data and communications are passed securely and with assurance.
Through planned application of technologies and policy driven methodology of technological communications, technology has a place in the education system but will also pose a risk to the stakeholders one way or another because of the fact that just as a lesson on a more taboo topic in class, it is a human operated/facilitated tool that requires appropriation.
The possibilities with regards to technology and even advancements in “modern technology” not only provide further opportunities for enriched learning but an enriched learning in how to conduct oneself appropriately socially. It feels like this is most ethical when it begins with a communication line between the parents and teachers, thereafter being an extending invitation to the students. Leithwood's sentiments on parent engagement (2012) resonate with me in that if there is a matter of convenient time or relevantly timed discussions for areas in need of attention, the students can receive effective supports.
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