Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Week 5 Reflection

From this week readings, we can argue that there are many lessons that schools and others education systems can take from the business sector when it comes to use and implement Intructional Design and Technology. The first approach which took my attention when readingthe chapter was the fact that most companies in the private sector use technology technology based training delivery. These companies understood that they could take a great advantage on news technologies in order to solve their problems. The believe that relying on an expert or consultant in Intructional Design and Technology can help them to solve in a better , faster and cheaper way the problems that they might be facing internally. Of course, in order to make this approach successfull , the organizations managers and staff members need to know first what their problem is and then call on expert who will then be able to help them with adequate solution. From this example , I will argue that teachers and others educators can take a similar approach in order to solve the different obstacles which exist in the school systems especially when it comes to Instructional Technology. I think that the school actors by collaboring and discussing about themselves can identify the key challenges they are facing. And using the experience of an external consultant can be sometimes the best approach to solve these problems. The intructional designers should be familiar with the education organization they are working with in order to fully take in consideration the needs of both teachers and students and to come up with the best solutions able to satisfy their needs. The designers should have a client approach and work closely with the people who will use the new technology.

In addition to the training, I think that education systems can also use Intructional Design and technology methods as tool of evaluation. Indeed, when an organization implement a new technology it should have a process by which it can compare the outcomes to the expeted results. Evaluation is a key component when it comes to measure the impact of a new technology on the performance of an education system. For example , after training teachers to use a new instructional sofware , the scholl will try to see if the the training ahs improve the performance of the teachers or not. For reaons of acountility and performance , I think it is very important that Instructional Designers include in their intervention tools of evaluation which will allow the client to determine if the technology is decided to introduction in his organization has been effective or not.

From Chapter 21, I have been surprised by the fact many states do not accord enough importance to technology when giving teaching licenses to news intructors. The artile mentions that only 21 states require technology coursework for getting a teaching license and 10 states for the recertification. This seems to be a paradox. Indeed, if states and public agencies in charge of education really want to improve the quality of education systems via the Introduction of new technologies in the classrom , they will have to do more than what has been done so far. As it is mentioned in teh article , "the teacher is the most important ingredient for sucess when using technology Good teaching comes first, technology second". In order to achieved sucessfull results one of the priorities of the education systems should be to train and to give to their teachers the well skills and knowledge they need.

I also positevely surprised by the fact that the Net Q model can have a very positive impact of the performance of education systes. If well implemented , this model can help all the school actors to achieve their goals. It will give to the students with the help of teachers all the skills they need in order to be ready for the 21st century jobs. This model emphasize on teh fact that there is a difference between using a computer and being able to take the maximum advantage of the information available on the Web. If students are well prepared, they will not only be able to effective use the computers but also to make great things with the technologies they have in hand.

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