Teaching Children Technology Skills

Technology and Authentic Learning

You have just completed a beginning-of-the-school-year open house for parents. Following your presentation, several parents ask whether you will focus on helping their children develop 21^st century technology skills. They ask you to describe several learning experiences you have designed and plan to implement this year.

• What are two authentic examples of learning with technology that you could share with parents?
• Provide a rationale for each that describes how the activities will meet educational technology standards and characteristics of meaningful learning with technology.

I am the assistant dean of the Beijing Information Science and Technology University College of International Education (BISTU-CIE). I teach IELTS and TOEFL workshops for Chinese ELLs and basic/general English and business English classes for our international ELLs. Most of our international students come from South Korea and the former Soviet Union nation-states.

Most of my international ELLs are majoring in international trade. Therefore, I have my business English students do a business plan proposal and presentation. In small groups, students use the Internet to research opportunities and possibilities for starting their own business. They also have to create a business plan indicating their product or service, cost structure, and projected profits or losses for the first, second, third, and fifth years, among other things. They then organize this information into a PowerPoint presentation and present their proposals to the class. Students then vote for the proposal that is the most realistic and plausible and has the best chance of success.

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I believe this integrates technology with an authentic learning activity that is relevant to their major. This meets the 2016 ISTE standard no. 3, Knowledge Constructor which states, “Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others” (ISTE, 2016, p.1) and no. 6, Creative Communicator, since the students must use the Internet for research, organize their research using office productivity software such as word processing and spreadsheets, and finally create a digital presentation to be displayed and shared with others. It also fits Newman and Wehlage’s (1993) definition of authentic learning, “which requires students to construct meaning and produce knowledge, inquire to construct meaning, reflect and discuss information, and create or perform tasks that have values of meaning beyond success in school” (cited in Cydis, 2015, p. 69) for the same reasons.

In my IELTS and TOEFL workshops, students are given speaking prompts taken from actual past tests. Students are given the rubrics the testers use to evaluate their speaking. Students then record their responses on their phones. Then, in pairs or as a class, we listen to the recordings and students evaluate and critique themselves and others according to the rubrics and match their performances to the approximate proficiency band.

This activity is authentic because it simulates the speaking portions of the TOEFL and IELTS exams and requires students to put themselves in the shoes of an evaluator and evaluate their speaking skills with a critical ear. It also meets the ISTE (2016) standard 1c, “Students will use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice.” By listening to recordings of themselves and comparing what they hear against the proficiency band rubrics, students are able to identify strengths and weakness in their own pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, or grammar, and target the weak spots. This gives them control over and ownership of their own learning.

References

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Cydis, S. (2015). Authentic instruction and technology literacy. Journal of Learning Design, 8(1), 68-78.

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) (2016). ISTE Standards for Students (2016). Arlington, VA: Author.