Section One: Defining the Field

1.  The definitions of instructional technology have evolved as technology has evolved.  My definition is a mix of each because it encompasses all the elements involved in teaching media.  Sight, Sound, Process, Design, Evaluation, Analysis, Creation, Research, Performance... Any form of using media to enhance education for teachers, administrators, students, and parents is instructional technology.  I have learned that there are so many verbs involved in instructional technology that it is impossible to clearly define.  I guess that is why it takes pages to effectively capture it.

2.  One lesson that I designed involved teaching elementary students to analyze poetry.  I used images in a power point that coincided with the images in the poem, which was to help students understand the poetry is about seeing the pictures within the poem.  I taught them the Advanced Placement method to analyze a poem by going through each step as a class.  First, we discussed the title of the poem.  Then, we looked at the language in the poem and tried to decide who the speaker was in the poem and what was basically happening in the poem.  Students had to defend their answers using text from the poem.  Third, we found words or phrases that held emotional power to them.  Words with a punch.  Students found them on their own, in pairs, and shared them aloud.  Once we analyzed the power of words, we looked at each stanza and the vivid image in each.  This is where the simple power point became anything but simple because it helped them with references that they did not necessarily understand, like color slides.  The shift in the poem occurs before the last stanza, so I used a student volunteer to act out the last stanza.  This brought us to evaluating tone.  What was the speaker's attitude?  Students did an amazing job of understanding a difficult concept after the process that we did together.  Tone led to theme.  What is the message of the poem?  Third graders were asked to write what they thought was the message at the bottom of the page.  The students were able to successfully accomplish critical thinking skills by completing each step.  Finally, they had an enlightened understanding of the title.  It was deeper than first thought.  The next portion of the lesson was giving the students the poem The Witch by Jack Prelutsky and asking them to create an Animoto video that displayed their analysis of the poem: Title, Speaker, Paraphrase, Diction, Imagery, Tone, Theme, and reevaluation of Title.  It was highly successful, and I can honestly say that students learned critical thinking skills and applied them to the next lesson while using media/technology.

3.  Instructional technology/media includes chalkboards and textbooks.  In fact, teachers are the most essential element of any instruction.  Every student learns differently and some prefer the textbook to the computer.  Instructional technology involves meeting diverse learners' needs through media, which might be the chalkboard.  iPads are multifunctional and possess infinite possibilities, but teachers make the biggest difference than any fancy piece of technology.  That is why it is so important that teachers are constantly growing and learning using the current tools of technology/media.