The document is a reflection from Jennifer Chang Wathall on her learning from Module 1. She discusses how effective technology integration depends more on how tools are used to enhance learning rather than just the tools themselves. She was also surprised but glad to learn about the importance of social interactions, interpersonal skills, and supportive colleagues to successful technology innovation. Strong teacher skills like technological proficiency, pedagogical compatibility, and social awareness are the most influential factors for classroom technology success according to studies. Professional development should help teachers reflect on their beliefs and develop skills like social awareness to encourage technology integration.

1. Jennifer Chang Wathall
Date: 13th January 2017
Reflection for Module 1
Innovative Technology: Do people realize it’s not about what you use but
how you use any digital tool?
I was so happy to read and learn that effective integration of innovative
technology is not just about what digital tool you use and the technical aspects of
that particular tool but how the tool is used to enhance learning. This aligns with
my personal beliefs about effective technology integration.
I am surprised but glad to learn that social interactions, inter-personal skills and
human infrastructure are so important to the success of innovative technology
integration. To me, this means that you have to be very collegial and think
carefully about how you approach colleagues and people in general. I work with
some people who do not understand the importance of appropriate social
interactions and this makes it extremely difficult to work with them. Like every
skill I think one can develop inter-personal skills and social awareness. Teachers
need to interact all the time with students, colleagues and parents so I would
recommend there should be courses to support development in this area. There
are some courses called “Having difficult conversations” which give strategies
and guidelines on how to conduct difficult conversations but perhaps there
should also be courses emphasising and reinforcing the positive aspect when
communicating with colleagues, students and staff.
Yong Zhao is very famous and I have seen his name pop up in many conferences.
In fact I think he is one of the keynote speakers for the IB Americas conference
later this year. I have not had the pleasure of seeing him speak but I now
understand why his work is so meaningful and significant to educational
technology. Previous studies have always focused on specific software and
student achievement rather than success factors of technology innovation in the
classroom. In this week’s readings I learned comprehensively about the 11
factors (categorised into three domains: teacher, project, context) that influence
the success of technology innovation in the classroom. Through extensive
research (10 case studies!) the most influential factor remains to be the teacher!
When teachers are strong then there was more chance of success. A strong
teacher means they have technological proficiency, pedagogical technology
compatibility and social awareness. I think this implies that teachers will never
be able to be replaced by machines! Machines do not possess the inter-personal
skills (depending where artificial intelligence goes) and social awareness to be
able to support classroom technology innovation.
Professional development needs to include opportunities for teachers to reflect
on their own pedagogical beliefs about using technology and develop skills such
as social awareness in order to encourage successful technology integration in
the classroom. Any school wanting successful integration of technology needs to
provide the human and technical infrastructure to support teachers and allow
for easy access to digital tools.