Blending the Classroom: The Inclusion of New Media Tools in Education

Blending the Classroom:

The Inclusion of New Media Tools in Education

As the Common Core State Standards are implemented into curriculum in elementary, middle, and high schools across the country, teaching practices must be adjusted to meet new requirements and expectations. Technology use is now a central focus of the standards, which concerns many teachers for a wide variety of reasons including lack of teacher training, a decline in face-to-face communication skills, the lack of student control, the decline in test scores and essential skills, and even the role of the teacher becoming obsolete (Wilson, 2013). As new media becomes more readily available, educators must carefully examine technology tools available and consider how to best implement them into the classroom environment. In order to effective implement and resolve any issues that arise with technology, educators must gain knowledge on how to use new media tools to gain information, enhance the student experience, and allow students to be producers of content themselves. Despite the fears and uncertainly of a drastically changing educational landscape, educators must learn to teach in a blended classroom that uses both traditional teaching methods and practices with technology to purposeful enhance the student experience and cultivate key 21st century literacy skills.

An emphasis on including technology and new media in the classroom is derived from the need for young people to be active digital citizens in a tech-savvy world. The new Common Core State Standards were initially adopted by individual states by choice in 2010 as a means of ensuring that all students leave their educational careers prepared for post-secondary endeavors (Common Core State Standards...

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...eachers, districts must create cohesive and clear plans to use technology in meaningful ways that will benefit both student learning and teaching practices. These changes are great and are happening quickly; in order to prepare teachers for such a philosophical shift in teaching practices, clear communication must occur (Vance, Carlson, Lively, & Mastracchio Jr., 2013).

To help communicate expectations, teachers must be given sufficient professional development to enhance their skills with new media that is being incorporated into the classroom. Successful technology integration is important and is what makes moving toward a blended classroom more effective. “Integrating technology is not easy, it is a three step process that involves the teacher learning the technology…” before students even have access to it (Sabzian, Gilakjani, Pourhosein, & Sodouri, 2013).