Impact Of Technology On Student/Teacher Roles Robinder KahlonUniversity of Ontario Institute of TechnologyRunning head: IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON STUDENT/TEACHER ROLES 1

IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON STUDENT/TEACHER ROLES 2

AbstractThis paper compiles the evidence from the course wiki page to support one of Judith V. Boettchers core principals for designing effective learning environments: that technology shapes how we learn. Specifically, Boettcher postulates that technology has a decentralizing effect on learning, shifting the teacher from a central role to a peripheral one, moving the student to the central role. The course wiki pages contains several examples to support this shift, but leave many more examples unexplored.Keywords: educational technology, transmission model, student-centered learning

Impact Of Technology On Student/Teacher Roles

Boettchers Core Learning Principle #3 is We shape our tools and our tools shape us. This is a simplification of a Lewis Laphams quote of Marshal McLuhan from the introduction to Understanding Media: We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us. (pg. xi xii) This quote of McLuhan clarifies that there is a sequential process at work: after we develop a piece of technology, the use of this technology influences our behavior.

Boettcher describes two categories of technologies, hardware (laptop and mobile devices) and internet applications (instant messaging, discussion boards, online forums, blogs, wikis, and email). Boettcher says that these technologies have resulted in changes in the roles of faculty and students. The role of faculty has been shifted from the center of the learning process to the periphery. With the advent of digital technologies, students can now access knowledge from sources outside of faculty, anytime and anywhere, giving them increased control over their own learning.

Boettchers description of the changes wrought by technology can be summarized in one concept: the decentralization of learning. First, technology causes decentralization in terms of faculty. The faculty is no longer the holder and deliverer of knowledge as it was under a transmission model of learning; faculty becomes the director of learning experiences. Other sources of knowledge, such as online sources or other students, exist and are accessible by students, allowing increased student control over the learning experience.

In searching for evidence of the effect on technology on changing roles of teachers and students, the page of the wiki that yielded the most description evidence was entitled Research supporting technology. Through this page were accessible several linked pages, each containing a field titled Positive Results, which described the beneficial effects of each technology on learning. Two technologies were described that facilitated learning outside of the teacher-centered classroom: Second Life and Twitter. According to a study, Second Life was found to increase the motivation and active participation of K-12 students, allowing them to collaborate on projects in an engaging online environment. Another study, regarding Twitter, reported that Twitter was used as a backchannel for discussion after lectures by post-secondary students, resulting in resource sharing and a development of a class collective intelligence. Both wiki articles support Boettchers principle that technologies have shaped the learning process, shifting the locus of control from the teacher to the student.

The inadequacy of the Research supporting technology page is that there are so few entries linked from this page. At present, it contains only three, of which the two described above were relevant to this study. The page requires more examples regarding the effect of various technologies in the classroom: obvious examples of technologies that may further the shift to student-directed learning are: tablets, smartphones, electronic survey tools (clickers), class blogs or wikis, interactive whiteboards, and digital games.

The other page containing supporting evidence for Boettchers principle was Learning Technologies which listed many technologies that have impacted the traditional student/teacher dynamic. Several technologies feature the capacity for online collaboration of learners, allowing students to learn from each other: Google Docs, Google Plus, Edmondo, Hoot.me, and Ning. Other technologies allowed learning from sources other than the teacher or students: Khanacademy and Gizmos. Like the previous set of technologies, these examples also shift the focus of learning away from teacher, putting the learner in charge of learning.

Unlike the Research supporting technology page, the Learning Technologies page linked to numerous examples of educational technologies, however, many were limited to descriptions and did not enumerate the benefits or changes caused by the technology. These positive benefits had to be inferred.

In conclusion, the course wiki page does support Boettchers contention that technology shapes our learning, more specifically, that technology moves the faculty from a central role to a more peripheral role, and moves the student to the central. The course wiki could however be improved by including several missing educational technologies, or by expanding the information available on the technologies that are included.

References

Boettcher, J. V. (2007). Ten core principles for designing effective learning environments: Insights from brain research and pedagogical theory. Innovate: Journal of Online Education. Retrieved from http://www.innovateonline.info/pdf/vol3_issue3/Ten_Core_Principles_for_Designing_Effective_Learning_Environments-__Insights_from_Brain_Research_and_Pedagogical_Theory.pdf