Results from SurveyMonkey and Reflection on Technology Presentation

After a long day of teaching high school or middle school, most teachers inevitably reflect on their successes and failures of the day’s lessons. Was that activity or lesson the best way to engage students in the material? Did the students practice the skills they need to be able to perform on their own? Did the students practice the skills they need to build up to more advanced skills?

After presenting to a group of colleagues last Tuesday in our class meeting, I reflected on a completely different set of questions. Did my classmates learn anything from the activities we did, or were the activities ineffective? Did classmates leave thinking about technology as a powerful tool in the classroom or as another “bell and whistle” to entertain students with? In order to receive some immediate and honest feedback, we asked the class to anonymously fill out a short survey on surveymonkey to answer some of these questions. I wanted to share with you the responses of two of (what I deem to be) the most important questions we asked on the survey so that you too can benefit some our mini-research using surveymonkey.

How would you describe the difference in composition between handwriting a response and typing a response?

This multiple choice question offered the following responses to describe the difference in the composition process of handwriting a response and typing a response: none, negligible, noteworthy, and significant. Of these four choices, 0% chose none and negligible, 72% described the difference as noteworthy, and the remaining 28% described the difference as significant.

If the difference in the composition process is at least noteworthy, if not significant, then teachers need to take this into account in how they assign writing tasks. If students approach the page differently than the way they approach the virtual page, students need to be familiar with both contexts, not just one. As an AP teacher, I know that my students must handwrite their essays for the AP exam in May. Would it not be a disservice to AP students if teachers required students to write their first drafts on a computer rather than requiring them at least half the time to handwrite their first drafts?

Is there anything we didn't discuss today (regarding technology) that you want to know more about?

The responses to this question varied, from one person saying “lots” to another apologizing for being brain dead and without suggestion. The responses I found most interesting acknowledged technology as a way to break open the doors of our classrooms and make the world our classroom. Here are two suggestions from the survey:

Response 1: Possibly video-conferencing with, for example, an author of a book, etc.

Response 2: How can we easily and quickly create a podcast for students who miss class?

Both authors of these responses are looking to connect to people outside of the classroom, namely a professional or a student who misses class. While I am, by no means, an expert in technology, I encourage the author of response #1 to look into Skype. It is free software to connect you to any other computer in the world (as long as that person also uses skype) to talk for as long as you like. You dial a number (much like on a phone) on your computer. This is an especially useful to contact people in foreign countries. No more international fees, people! Use skype instead…plus if they have a web cam, you can talk with them and see them, too.

For author #2, there are a number of programs to make podcasts. If you have a Mac, it’s easiest to use Garage Band. If you have a PC, check out Audacity. It’s free and does pretty much the same thing as Garage Band. While the idea of podcasting in a classroom is great (I’m currently developing a project in which the students create podcasts), I’m not sure it’s the best tool out there for quickly catching students up with missed work. Would you be videotaping your lessons and then posting them online? If so, you don’t need to make a podcast to do that.

Download these free programs and play around with them. When you have a specific question, there are usually pretty good resources online that can help you solve your problem. If you do feel more comfortable with learning technology as a “guided tour” rather than as a game you just start playing, I know that Mac stores offer weekly tutoring sessions when you purchase a membership. While I personally don’t have the time/money to invest in this kind of thing, my school has bought one membership for a year, allowing the teachers at our school to share the membership. I think the idea of a school purchasing one membership to share is a pretty good one if the faculty who are taking advantage of this program are fairly tech-savvy. For faculty who need a little more time to catch on to new programs, they may find that one session is nowhere near enough time to really learn a program well enough to use it in the classroom. I went to a “one-on-one” (one teacher, one student, one hour) to learn how to edit and publish podcasts. While I went to learn how to produce and publish, I of course took note as to how I was being taught. My “instructor” sat next to me as I sat at the computer. He asked me to guess as to how to find the program, where to find the right buttons for record, play, rewind, etc. He did not touch the mouse or computer for the whole hour. When I couldn’t find something, he would give me a hint like, “Look toward the bottom-left of your screen.” He would not even point his finger. This initially made the experience somewhat frustrating, as I felt that I was wasting part of my hour looking for things he could have easily pointed out, but after my session, I understood that this was an effective way of teaching technology because it builds confidence in us as students of technology, that we are capable at guessing how to learn a program. In some sense, the one-on-one confirms that the way I usually learn technology may be the best way: just play with it.