Meta-analysis....

The Meta-analysis of the effectiveness of teaching and learning was an EXTREMELY in-depth article about the many studies that have been conducted on whether or not technology positively or negatively affects teaching and learning. This article stated that the effect was modest, at .410, which I thought was surprisingly low. In recent years I have started integrating a lot of technology into my curriculum, and I think it has had a HUGE positive effect. I agreed with some of the things stated in the article. First of all, they talked about how students are more on-task and engaged when using technology than they are when they are learning the same things without technology. I have seen this first hand several times. I have a SMARTBoard in my room, and I know that my students are much more engaged and on-task now than they were before I had it. I've also modified a lot of assignments I used to do to incorporate technology, and my students are definitely more engaged, on-task, and interested than they used to be in these assignments. Second, the article discussed how one variable is how much technology background and/or interest the teacher has. I have seen this with some of my colleagues. Some of them would like to integrate more technology, but they haven't had the training they need to learn the technology themselves. We have been talking about having after school sessions where people on staff with computer backgrounds could teach computer applications to their colleagues. Hopefully this will make technology training more accessible to them so they can gain the knowledge they need to integrate technology for their students.