Integrating Technology in P12

            One aspect of this chapter that really stuck out to me was the possible reasons for the mixed results of integrating technology into P-12 education.  Specifically, the reason of “The intensity, focus, or amount of professional development may not have adequately prepared the teachers to effectively develop and implement lessons that fully support achievement of curriculum standards” (p. 212).  From what I have seen, this is all too true.  In most cases, professional development days are never long enough for how much the staff wants to accomplish.  As educators, we are constantly required to adjust our curriculum, and trying to change too much at once leads to very little change overall.  What we need to focus on is not drastic changes, but effective, well-developed changes.  Establishing good foundations for integrating technology will allow us to more easily integrate technology in a more complex way in the near future.

            Additionally, this chapter seemed to lament the use of technology for low-level tasks.  I agree that such high-level technology needs to be used to a higher capacity.  We want to make effective use of our technology so that we are not wasting our resources.  That being said, there is still benefit to using technology for low-level tasks.  With the near-constant access to technology, it seems that it is assumed that students know how to use these tools for their low-level tasks.  However, these assumptions can lead to students not developing the basics skills such as effective and efficient typing, research, and formatting documents.  So while we need to strive for higher-level uses, we need to make sure we do not ignore the low-level basics.