More than Technology
by: Adam French

            
Being the avid talk radio listener I am,  I happened to catch a plug on learning and the human brain causing me to ponder my own learning process.  I cannot help be fascinated by the inner workings of the human mind.  One of my favorite past times happens to even be watching my students struggle through various motor skill activities (pat head and rub stomach and so on) that have them use both hemispheres of their brain. Seeing the expression on their faces while the person next to them is confidentially demonstrating the ability while everyone else continues to still struggle, is priceless.  What the expert on the radio was confidently conveyed to the audience was the idea that humans can only remember fifty percent of the information they learn from the day before.  This information wasn’t to shocking, more of a reassurance in my teaching instead. When you spend nine months with ninth and tenth graders it’s more of an “I get it now.”  Those days of banging my head on the wall when you spend countless hours/days covering a concept with no success makes me wonder.  Was it the content? The manner to which it was taught or learned? Or was it something I am entirely oblivious too?  No matter if you believe the whole fifty percent lost idea or similar ones, something must be special that causes an individual to retain a learned experience instead of going the way of the Dodo which happens to be the case with most newly introduced material.  
          
Reflecting over my personal journey through the Masters in Educational Technology program I quickly distinguish the Dodo’s to the truly learned experiences.  Being a Dodo course or content doesn’t mean the information was invaluable but was presented or transferred in less personal manner.   Reflecting upon this has also helped me shed a little light on the learner I happen to be with and without technology.

I consider myself a very typical learner.  In school and in even in college finding myself to go above and beyond in many occasions but more often doing enough to get by.  This masters course as well as a combination of trial runs with newly developed curriculum, and thankfully an open minded administration has changed my view on what makes learned skills/content retainable.  Reflecting on what personal experiences stay with an individual or influence them show me now that if you want to maximize your learner’s potential it’s a necessary.  Looking over the accomplishments and newly formed ideologies I have collected over the course of the last four years share three common themes: engagement, understanding, and fun! Each of which can be traced back to an experience in the Master's Program.

During the summer of 2009 I had the privilege of taking a cohort session that consisted of 800, 815, and 822.  It’s hard disseminating between classes due to the intensity of the summer sessions and the overlapping of time, but I can distinguish the truly meaningful experiences that had shaped my understanding of learning and technology.  From the get go I quickly realized this was going to be a different experience when we had to take personal pictures that represented us.  I can still remember the picture of myself soaking and wet climbing a tree half way smiling because the always prepared Eagle Scout forget to stock my car with an umbrella for my mile hike across campus.  I carried an umbrella to class from then on.  Other than this rainy learning experience, the first major idea and influence had here which from this cohort on set tone for the remainder of my MAET experience.  The engagement of coursework in this summer had lasting impressions, from the homemade videos showing science occurring, to the misconception project, and gaming assignment, influenced the work be done in my class today.  The instructors showed me how to make learning theories even engaging!  From these classes I was able to take away the know-how and confidence to produce projects in my current setting.  The results seemed instant.  Seeing the engagement in my students who unfortunately lose their data that they have spent the last hour gathering and not brake stride to begin to complain or the students who get done and then decide they have came up with a better plan then decided to us their free weekend.  If it wasn’t for this engaging environment and applicable experiences during this cohort it would have been hard for me to see technologies ability to foster engagement.  At the end of the day I took more away from this learning experience than the science curriculum more importantly the developmental skills.  Fortunately for me this engaging learning style wasn’t part of the fifty percent lost.  This now takes us to the Fall of 2009 the setting of my second influential experience occurred.

Having the word science in the course title made CEP 806 an easy choice for me.  Not having any perceived notions of the course other than the praise from fellow grad students about Dr. Wong I went into the course with high expectations, and it did deliver.  What he opened my eyes to was technology's ability to make learning online fun.  Working collaboratively with a fellow classmate to build simple structures as a catapult and tower was truly exciting experience for even half grown up adult such as myself.  The excitement of waiting for my partner to send his most updated and successful photos while conversing on ways to modify our design,  what a unique experience.  This course instilled in me the importance of fun technology can bring not just in science but in all contexts.  It may have not been one of centralized ideas of the course but I was for me.  Engaging activities can only go so far with many students and when you can introduce some fun into a lesson I can make much more meaningful and retainable as my experience showed.  Many times fun gets overlooked in education.  I find myself asking students what they did in past grades, mostly science classes and what you get from is what labs or projects that the teacher or instructor focused around being fun.  Not only did this course expose me to the different technology applications and their tradeoffs but what it more importantly did for was reiterating the importance of fun. The same fun that inspired me to develop the innate love of science and the outdoors.  Both fun and engagement are both vital and go hand in hand when it comes to the third influential takeaway from my MAET experience: Authentic Understanding.

For my final influential moment it was a team effort so I won’t give sole credit to just one individual.  This newly formed way of looking at teaching and learning was a two part process.  During the first summer cohort of 2009 which I previously mentioned I was exposed to the idea of understanding and learning and what separates one from the other.  Having both professors Punya Mishra and Mike Deschryver open my eyes to the theory behind understanding and what it takes to produce experiences that foster this became a truly meaningful experience.  This newly formed mindset was then put into practice during the Spring of 2010.  The course was CEP 820 Teaching K-12 Students online with Greg Casperson who happened to fill in for another instructor mid class.  Up until this point in my teaching career I hadn’t ever went into lesson generating/planning mode with the focus on understanding.  Old me would have focused primarily on standards and learning a concept in detail to later be regurgitated when tested.  Very traditional!   A combination of learning about the importance of engagement and fun and the manner that 820 was taught allowed me to put the recently introduced theory about understanding from my previous courses into practice.  This experience not only introduced me to basics of course management software but how to facilitate and utilize various technological tools imbedded into these programs.   Used correctly they become a highway of feedback which ultimately produces a deeper level of understanding.  Like anyone I have to believe the more we share ideas and thoughts the likelihood of bridging new and old ideas is going to be evident.  These are the experiences that aren’t forgotten in twenty four hours.   

Looking back over the last four years I became more well rounded not just in the area of technology but in my overall approach to education.  I was introduced to truly authentic learning experiences that brought out my own misconceptions in not just technology but in education.  It has made me aware what goes into making retain-able curriculum and the role technology can play in this endeavor.  The ultimate goal before entering the program was producing lessons that taught more than the content but the skills will make them successful learner’s and understander’s in this changing society.  I believe the experience in MAET has done this.