CUR 545 Assignment #1

The podcast discusses educational technology and the theories that shape its use in the classroom. It mentions influential theorists such as Pavlov, Skinner, and Gagne. The focus has shifted from drill and practice to long-term memory and processing. Technology is now used as a tool for intervention and differentiation in classrooms. The podcast emphasizes the importance of engaging and meaningful technology use that aligns with educational goals. The integration of technology standards helps cater to different learning styles and allows students to take initiative in their own learning. It is crucial to use technology thoughtfully and effectively to enhance learning. Welcome to the EdTech podcast. My name is Sarah Dissler. Today we are going to be talking about educational technology and theories that shape our educational technology use and all things in the classroom that have to do with educational technology, the theories that have been brought forth to help shape this learning in our classroom and how we feel they guide our lessons and our curriculum. Let's start by talking about some educational theories that help to shape EdTechnology. Some things that the first way that this started was Pavlov and his classical conditioning and then it moved to Skinner with his positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement through drill and practice. Then that idea of behavioral learning changed and we thought about our brains and how our brains work and moving things and how powerful our brain was. We came into that in the 50s and 60s with Robert Gagne and how he shaped information processing in our brains. He gave examples of how lessons should look so that we are getting the most out of our learning and that students are taking in as much as they can and bringing it to that long term memory. This is really important for students, especially in the younger ages because when you are younger you learn the most and your brain is able to remember the most. It was really important to get away from this drill and practice and this constant repetition to this idea of long term memory and long term processing. All of this helped to shape how we use technology in the classroom because technology is a tool most often used for drill and practice or that long term memory storage where we are taking something that is engaging and exciting and something that we want to work on and using it to then practice what we have learned in our large group instruction. This could be differentiated to all students and to all kids with different needs. I know in an elementary classroom where I work, we use it as a tool for intervention. We take kids who might not be reading where they need to be and give them these different engaging lessons to help them get back up to those levels that they need to be. All of these influences of Skinner, Atkins, and Shiffrin, Gagne, they all helped to develop these theories on technology and helped us to bring them to our classroom. It brought us away from this, okay, let's drill and practice and drill and practice and brought us to this idea that we need to get kids to this long term storage memory. We need to get kids to remember what letter comes after A and the letter sounds and our vowel sounds. It gave us these ideas that memory and our brains are capable of so much more. In my classroom, I know for me, Atkins and Shiffrin are something that are people that I look to often because they were the people who really talked about this idea of that to learn they need to practice and over time with practice is something that helps our brain to grow long term memory. I'm currently a third grade teacher and being a third grade teacher, students are learning things for district wide tests like their multiplication facts so having technology to use to give them engaging content to also help them remember things. I know for me, there are certain websites like Lookit that give them practice questions but it's in the form of a game so they think that they are just playing a game but they're also learning and getting way more content than they even believe that they are. That theory from Atkins and Shiffrin that they need to be engaging but it also can be drill and practice is something that's so important to my planning. Technology standards also help to guide and make sure that we are differentiating our instruction for students and making sure that we are engaging all learning styles. Through technology we learn so much and it can play to our audio learning, our visual learning, our kinesthetic learning and giving that option to students to go on their Chromebooks or go on a computer with a friend to play a game or to do some type of practice just gives them more choice and makes them more exciting and take initiative over their own learning. It's super important that we're making sure that all of these theories and things that have been brought forth in the past remain in practice when we are thinking about education or technology in education. Technology is something that can be overused if we're not thinking about it in a smart way. We need to make sure that we are thinking about our technology and using it to its full and correct extent. What I mean by correct is that it's not just something that we're throwing in there. It's meaningful. It has something to do with what they are learning and it's going to add to that learning. I think that that's something that we need to remember from all of these societal changes and how we move from that behavior learning to our cognitive learning and that's so, so important. With that being said, that's all for this week's podcast episode. I hope you join us back next time. Thank you.