I also read Teacher Dispositions as Predictors of Classroom Technology Use by Rachel Vannatta and Nancy Fordham. The time constraints that were addressed repeatedly were interesting. I have heard teachers say on more than one occasion that they would not participate, change, or be open to new learning opportunities if they were not going to be sufficiently payed for not only the training, but their drive time and food as well.
For me the article did not touch enough on the teachers "Disposition" if you will. Even with all the technology and training in the world how do you change the attitude of a close minded teacher let alone an entire school?
No duh that teachers committed to classroom improvement who are comfortable with technology and have the time and training are going to use it more (I mean honestly, do fish live in water?) . . . that would be an administrators dream. . .

PS. blogging is fun. . . I feel liberated, bad grammar, half thoughts, run on sentences, no holds bar opinions, I can say whatever I want and not have to worry about offending someone, this is awesome.

S.

In the article written by Rachel Vannatta and Nancy Fordham it looks at a study that examines various teacher dispositions that predict technology use among k-12. Such as teacher self-efficacy, philosophy, openness to change, amount of professional development, and of technology use in the classroom. Overall the article was rather dry.

Entering the Blogging World

It has been fun and interesting wrinting my first posts. It has been even more fun looking at ideas on other blogs. I can see how students would be able to share their own ideas and also see the ideas of others of their peers on any particular topic. If younger people really make up over 50% of blogging world (Huffaker, 2009) then this could be a wonderful tool for the teacher that is able to use it. I can also see how this may be just the forum some students need to be able to express their ideas without being concerned with face to face communication or oratory skills. I think it is a great way for students to write more and post on school topics and communicate with each other. -Trent

References

Huffaker, D. (2004). The educated blogger: Using weblogs to promote literacy in the classroom. First Monday, 9(6).

Student Centered Ed

Hey guys I just finished reading a great article on the differences between student centered and teacher centered classroom. It was great. It outlined the what each was and and discussed some of the positive things and some of the negatives of each. I believe my classroom has elements of student centered learning but I think I could do a lot better. I will send you the reference for the article later. Trent.

References

Brown, K. L. (2003, Fall). From teacher-centered to learner-centered curriculum: Improving learning in diverse classrooms. Education, 124(1), 49.