MY OPEKA’S QUESTIONNAIRE
For this task, I introduced my data as a special education teacher, and after filling in this survey I got the following results:
In the first category, it seems that my knowledge of and about technology is at the same level as the rest of the special educators and teachers in Finland. I agree with the answers from this survey, however I cannot give a reliable answer since I have only had the opportunity to carry out few pedagogical interventions with kids during the year I was working. In addition, at this concern, it might be clarified that this interventions are based in the one to one approach in mainly all the sessions, where technology can be used only as a tool to provide the student support in the areas or abilities he may have difficulties in, but not as an instrument to enhance and foster the student’s learning process.
Secondly, in regards to the procedures, the punctuation is over the average due to the following aspects; I received special technical support and tips from the ICT service and peers at the school where I was collaborating. Moreover, technology was seen with positivism by teachers and students, and it was included in the curriculum with special emphasis on its use. Not only the fact that there was enough technological devices, such as Ipads, computers and a small technological laboratory, but also that the teacher in charge of it was giving support and instruction to the rest of the teachers was one of the reasons why the score has been like that. Finally, it has to be mentioned that apart from this teacher, there was an ICT department that was in charge of all the technologies at the school and that gave support and repaired the devices when needed.
In third place, I do not agree with the data shown. When I was reading the results, there was some questions that do not match with my answers, like for example:
where the nonexistent purple bar is my answer. However, I had marked that technologies are an important part of my methods as an educator. Nevertheless, I do agree that the use of ICTs helps developing students’ cooperating and collaborating skills and also that it could reduce the student’s loose of motivation to study and improve their general performance when learning.
In fourth place, my answers apparently showed a decent pedagogical background for the use of technology, however the same situation as before is faced in here. There are several questions that appear not answered when in reality they were answered. In regards to the first question, I may say that my students really did collect their learning during group project in online environments and used social media as a tool to communicate. The Ipads, computers and technological devices were often used in the school for teaching, minimum three times per week, but in this questionnaire the response seem not to appear. To sum up, I would like to conclude saying that this issue should be regarded in a different way, hence, it’s my belief that I do have a stronger pedagogical background in the use of technologies in the classroom.
Finally, the last question addressed in this survey was the ICT skills. I DO NOT agree at all with the results because of the same thing pointed out in the previous categories. On the other hand, it seems, that the fact that I know how to use a 3d printer and how to use digital materials put the score in a higher level. Unfortunately, I do not consider the result in this category as reliable.
Here there is a picture showing the percentages of my results.
To conclude I would like to mention that this survey was conditioned by the following reasons; first, the scope is only Finland. Second, I cannot set my school, back in Spain, in my background information. Third, this issue affected the results in the sense that they were compared in an university level instead of in a school level. Finally, the last reason why this questionnaire does not really show reliable information is because some items in the survey appeared not answered or at least did not appear in the results.
Diego Guzman Medrano.
