Running head: TECH INTEGRATION CASE STUDYANALYSIS 1

Technology Integration Case Study Analysis

Gary Sullivan

ISTC 674
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Instructional Lesson

https://www.teacher.org/wp-content/themes/teacher/scripts/lesson-

plans/generate_lesson_plan.php?id=presidential-politics

This lesson describes a process for introducing the ideas around Presidential campaign

promises and the reality of what is implemented during a President’s actual time in office.

Students are asked to research a former president, identify what kinds of promises they make in

the campaign prior to their election, watch speeches where the candidates make these kinds of

promises, do research about what was actually achieved while they were in office, and then

present their finding in a speech to the class as a summary. They utilize computers and the

internet as a means of accessing the speeches and completing the research necessary to determine

whether campaign promises were kept.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The strength of this lesson is twofold. Students are engaging in exploratory learning that

is mostly student centered in choosing the president and conducting their own research.

Additionally, the use of technology adds a multimedia aspect through the speeches that lends

weight to the words of the President, and ultimately makes the fulfillment or lack thereof of the

campaign promises more poignant to the students.

I think one of the most glaring weaknesses I see is that the technology is not utilized in

the most effective fashion. It is good to get students to be able to find sources and information on

their own, but there are many opportunities for increased engagement with this lesson

considering the tech available.

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Benefits

The students use of technology and multimedia through the speeches lends to an

increased engagement level. Additionally, allowing the students to select the President of their

choice gives some level of freedom and allows students to feel some agency. Using computer-

based search engines will also yield much faster and more specific results in this line of “fact

checking” inquiry about former Presidents. Most resources I have available in my classroom

don’t contain this kind of information, so to have students choose their own President, it would

not really be possible to complete this lesson without technology.

Integration Model

The integration model I chose to utilize for this analysis is LoTi. The LoTi framework

essentially functions as a scale of technology incorporation in the classroom and can help to

determine how successful you are integrating the technology by comparing lessons to the

objectives listed in the framework. As the level of technology on the scale rises, the LoTi

framework promotes more student-based learning as opposed to instructor based.

If I had to put this lesson on the LoTi scale, I would put it somewhere between levels two

and three, or between Exploration and Infusion. Essentially, the technology serves to supplement

the instructional objectives, while also augmenting the lesson above what it would be without the

technology. As I explained in the previous section, this lesson is only as engaging as it is to

students because of the level of freedom and choice they have in both choosing the President

they want, and the freedom in collecting the necessary information from a wide range of possible

sources. I do not think it would be possible to do this lesson without it.

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Improvements

I think it would enhance the lesson a lot if students had to record their thoughts for their

speech into an audio file that could then be presented to the class with the aid of a visual like

PowerPoint. I find with this age group a lot of student presentations that have speeches end up

being a lot of “um’s” and “likes” and don’t end up conveying the actual information to the other

students in the most effective way. I think taking time to organize their thoughts and edit

together their speech in a program like Audacity would add clarity and confidence that there is a

lack off with 9th graders.

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References

Moersch, C. (1995). Levels of technology implementation (LoTi): A framework for

measuring classroom technology use. Learning and Leading with Technology, 23(3),

40–41.