DeVoss: Teaching with Technology

 

 

                 As I read through our most recent document, I was interested in both the ways that a technology teaching philosophy has developed since its introduction to the job selection process and how these documents can be used to better focus a teacher’s philosophy in regards to his or her profession. As the reading suggested, I agree with the notion that to focus these statements on specifically “teaching with technology” is a smart practice since technology changes so quickly and will help to keep a teacher in alignment with what they believe their occupation should entail. While these statements were used primarily as a function on a job application, the teaching with technology philosophy represents a form of media in and of itself, one that can be manipulated, used, and crafted to convey a particular message. I also believe that this close focusing on why a teacher would use this technology would make them a teacher more streamlined in their practice as an educator, while it serves the educator’s place of employment in the interview process by making sure that a potential hire falls in alignment with the establishment’s own philosophy.

               The reading goes on to pose a series of questions about the use of technology in the classroom, yet I think one of the most interesting points came in the suggestion that a teaching philosophy, like all other forms of media, has strengths and weaknesses, and as a result, should be considered in light of the intent of the message, essentially begging the question, “Is this the [proper] tool for the context?” (8). I think that keeping in mind this important question is crucial as a teaching philosophy is transformed into a multi-modal creation through the process of “remediation.” As is the case when a student or teacher approaches a project, “remediation…is an act that calls upon composers to reflect, resituate, and reshape a piece while moving it to another medium, and often to enhance” it as one step in the crafting process.

               A question from later in the document caught my attention: how do teaching philosophies change when the classroom itself also changes shape or form? As I was coming up with my own teaching philosophy, I was trying to keep my writing to my own beliefs, thoughts, and practices, and not to those of my place of employment. While I think that often times these teaching philosophies become shaped by an institution’s mission statement in order to make a teacher more marketable to an employer, I think that the philosophy itself should reflect the teacher’s beliefs instead; however, as I was trying to write my own teaching with technology department, it was nearly impossible to write my own personal philosophy that was devoid of any connection to the technology used at my place of employment. Since I have only taught in one school full-time, I recognize the influence that this school inevitably has on my views as a teacher.