Technology Assessment

Technology in the classroom is something that people can debate and they may never agree on it.  I personally feel that technology does belong in our classrooms.  Because I feel that it does belong in the classroom I also believe that technology assessment is important.  However, there are pros and cons to assessing technology. 

Teachers who have not been in the classroom very long have likely learned about technology to some extent.  This is because many of the teacher certification companies teach technology to their students.  This is wonderful, but that does not necessarily help those teachers who have been teaching for years. 

“In 1999 only one third of public elementary and secondary school teachers reported feeling well or very well prepared to use computers and the internet for classroom instruction (Mouza, 2002-2003).”  Because of this I believe that teachers should be assessed and then put in groups.  These groups should be taught the skills they lack.  This will help them feel more comfortable with using technology in the classroom.  I feel like many teachers will not ask for help because they do not want people to think they do not know how to do something.  Doing these assessments will eliminate the need for them to ask for help.  It will also keep the teachers from being embarrassed if they are in a training class and do not know what to do.  They will be in a class with others who are at the same level as them so they will each have many of the same questions.

I believe that we do have to be careful with assessments though.  There will always be someone who either does better or worse than their actual capabilities.  I think that we need to always try and see firsthand what the teacher does know.  There may be a teacher who says they can do something, but really they do not fully understand it.  For instance they may say they can use Excel, but do not realize that there is more than one thing they can do.  We need to make sure they can really do what they believe they can do.  Also, there are some who would say that they cannot do something well, but in reality they are very good at it. 

It is also important to assess students.  The teachers need to be able to determine how to teach each child.  You need to make sure that each student understands the basics of the computer before trying to teach them more advanced tasks.  If a student does not know how to use a mouse and keyboard it would be useless to try to teach them to use PowerPoint.  We need to make sure we have taught them everything they need to know to start using PowerPoint. 

In the end I believe that technology assessment is important.  I think that we just need to make sure that we do it in the right way.  We need to make sure that we group people in the right groups and get them the help they need.

References

Mouza, C. (2002-2003). Learning to Teach with New Technology: Implicaitons for Professional Development. Journal of Research on Technology in Education , 35 (2), 272-289.