Module 5 Blog: New Technologies

 New Technologies

Clickers were introduced as a pilot program they were distributed to teachers chosen by their principals to be technology ambassadors. The devices allowed students and teachers to instantly receive feedback during lessons or tests. Each student was given a clicker; the device was numbered, allowing teachers to identify each student’s answer. This technology was to engage students and encourage them to participate as opposed to teachers calling on just the students with their hands raised.

I quickly discovered that some teachers found the change in teaching style daunting, and as a result I was met with some resistance. Their attitudes about this new technology were far from positive. One behavioral characteristic that some of the teachers developed was they asked for more and more information about the new technology but, no matter how much information I provided the, they insisted that they needed more.

Resistance is an emotional response; it is a very natural reaction to change associated with the implementation of new technology. I thought that this new technology was so great I failed to realize that resistance might occur. Now that I look back on it I realize that the realization that resistance may occur was critical, in order for me to successfully manage the resistance so that the energy that the teachers were using on resisting could have been used to support the implementation of this new technology rather than cripple it.

If I had used Keller’s ARCS Model I could have promoted and sustained motivation in this technology using attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. I could have used inquiry arousal to stimulate curiosity by posing challenging questions or problems that could be solved using this technology. I could have established the relevance of this technology to increase motivation. I could have elaborated further on the present worth of the technology and the future usefulness of it. Confidence could have been further established by expressing my confidence in the technology. I could have presented evidence of the success of the technology. This model could have changed the motivation of the teachers and encouraged success.

References

Driscoll, M. P. (2005). Psychology of learning for instruction (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.