Re: Introduction
Michael Williamson (williams@whale.simmons.edu)
Wed, 26 Mar 1997 21:23:11 -0500 (EST)
Hi,
I agree with Don L. The technology needs to be integrated into the daily
tools available to students and teachers rather than "computer time at
10:00 Am on Tue and Thurs. The technology needs to be an expectation, a
tool just like the text, the reference materials, the black board, etc.
When it is integrated into the daily routine, and interest and confidence
builds we will be there!!
When a user, educator or student, sees concrete results from an initial
use they will be more likely to go back to the "well' and seek more and
work more independently.
Mike
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
J. Michael Williamson
Principal Investigator-WhaleNet <http://whale.wheelock.edu>
Associate Professor-Science
Wheelock College, 200 The Riverway, Boston, MA 02215
voice: 617.734.5200, ext. 256
fax: 617.734.8666, or 508.468.0073
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On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Don Livermore wrote:
> Hello,
>
> My name is Don Livermore. I am a middle school library media teacher and
> practitioner in the NSF Virtual Canyon project for the Monterey Peninsula
> area. The project combines various aspects/tools of technology with
> scientific research. My students work in partnership with the Monterey Bay
> Aquarium, it's sister research facility MBARI, and California State
> University Monterey Bay. A major goal of VC is to impact the way
> information (content) is received, utilized, and presented. "Doing
> science" in todays world demands the use of hard copy materials as well as
> recent electronic and onlines resources. The same applies to other
> curricula as well. The students use articles, reference books, online
> searches, and teleconferencing units to amass their information. They see
> the technological tools as a means to an end instead of just a cool toy to
> play with. Oh don't get me wrong, they are more than happy to work with
> these tools, but also realize how key they are to completion of their
> project. They have come to use them like a pencil or pen. This is an
> important aspect of our project. We want all students and staff become
> familiar with these resources and use them as an intragal part of their
> curriculum.
>
> The dilemma is how do we move relatively low-tech staff and studentbody
> towards this goal. One of the ways that has had some impact is to have
> teachers select one of their courses of studies and work with it in a
> technological format. They work with the librarian in the library's
> application center. Using electronic and online resources along with hard
> copy materials, student teams do research on a particular subject, organize
> the data, and construct a multimedia presentation followed with discussion.
> The teacher works hand-in-hand with the media teacher thus learning the
> process along with the students. In this model we have given the teacher
> and students training and acess to technology. We also did not create
> another project to add to the already full plate, but simply took what was
> on the exsisting plans and did it in another format. What was important,
> the technology was available for the class and someone was there to train
> and add support for all participants. After teachers and students have
> participated in one of these electronic reports, we find a greater use of
> technology for "school" work (book reports, homework, science and history
> projects, etc) and a higher attendance at offered tech training courses.
>
> I believe it is important that we all become more familiar with the ways
> technology can be applied with present curricula in a natural,
> non-threatening way. If we are to get buy-in, we can't create another
> thing to do. It just won't fly in an already too busy world.
>
>
>
>