Elements of Educational Technology

501: Introduction to Educational Technology

3.4 Policies and Regulations

So thinking about educational technology apparently gets me all hot and bothered.  As I was reading this article and reflecting on the notion of "facilitating" I kept thinking about issues in the classroom.  I love the shift to student ownership of learning and progress.  I love inquiry - based learning.  What I don't love is figuring out how assessment works and how these much more unique assignments and progressions work in an educational world that has become so so focused on "data."
I'm not saying that great use of educational technology or inquiry-based learning doesn't produce data.
In my experience, the standardized testing frenzy has gotten in the way of my units, my instructional time and the format of my own classroom assessments when my principal wants us to format  everything exactly like the TCAPs (the Colorado state standardized tests that last year were called the CSAPs and next year will be called something else all together.)  I love the idea that this in-flux definition of educational technology relies upon notions that I hold dear -- that problem solving skills are more important that fixed sets of information.  That's what so exciting about technology as tool for students to use, to create with, to explore by way of.
Sorry to rant!  That's what happens when I analyze education! This first week has been intimidating (Google plus and the Blogger are, as one my classmates said, not intuitive) but exciting.  Reading about what true educational technology means makes me very glad to have chosen to pursue it.

Here goes:
Elements of Educational Technology