Exemplary Encounters in Education Technology

For this final discussion, I have chosen to use a blog to discuss my experiences and encounters of educational technology “in my world.” I felt most comfortable with creating and using a blog in this course, as forum discussions between classmates got to be too large and cumbersome to manage after a point. I didn’t mind using Wimba, but if I fumbled my words during the recording, I would have to re-record my thoughts which became more of a headache than it was worth. Finally, I chose not to use a Wiki for this project, simply because the ability to allow someone else to erase my thoughts and include their own is not conducive to what this project is all about- MY evaluations, examples, and thoughts on how education technologies are exemplary or not when related to our course readings.
In my profession, I use educational technologies on a daily basis, but as Hughes (2006) states, “Simply identifying the technological applications in use does not help the field think about the role(s) of technology in education” (p.1). Thus, I’ll focus on the technology that I use most, which allows me to learn from others or teach others for the purpose of my profession.

One technology that I am becoming more familiar with is UMConnect, a real-time collaboration and communication tool available through the U of M that allows me to work with colleagues on other campuses to troubleshoot information technology issues, attend meetings or presentations, share files, and chat. Working at the University’s smallest campus enables me to wear a lot of hats. There are many people on the Duluth or Twin Cities campus that perform bits and pieces of my job; rather than travel between cities to exchange ideas or learn, we use UMConnect when we need to actually see something on another colleague’s computer screen. In evaluating this technology using Hughes’s (2006) RAT framework, one can easily see how it is exemplary in that it has replaced, amplified, and transformed the way my job was done in the past and how it could be helpful to so many faculty and staff on all UM campuses who could collaborate with other colleagues at any time. However, I am not sure how many people (outside of the “techie groups”) are using UMConnect. From a critical pedagogical standpoint, my knowledge of this technology was gained through social means, through my membership to the UM IT Professionals subculture or in other words, my job classification. According to McLaren (2003), “When critical theorists claim that knowledge is socially constructed, they mean that it is the product of agreement or consent between individuals who live out particular social relations” (p.72). When using this particular technology, we as employees of the university become social members of our own culture, sometimes using language that is known only by others in the same profession. Had I not been a member of this classification, I highly doubt that I would have been invited to communicate with my colleagues using this method, even though it could be used by any UM employee. Because of this reason, this technology may not be considered an exemplary education technology for others, strictly from an intimidation standpoint. Like so many technologies, most people feel comfortable using it when they are shown how to use it or when they are immersed into a situation in which it is being used and they can see it. To move this technology toward exemplary, a reference to Hughes’s (2006) RAT framework comes into play once again. Using UMConnect as a replacement for how-to meetings on other campuses would be a “means to the same instructional end” (p.2), it could amplify learning by its ability to save presentations for viewing and learning many times afterward, and it could transform the way people teach and learn from each other, particularly in a classroom setting online or on campus.