Today I attended a session on the SAMR model of technology integration, presented by Lisa Johnson, an education technology person who works with middle and high school aged students, and offers professional development to teachers. SAMR was developed by Ruben Puentedura, and the name may seem familiar to you because Dr. Puentedura worked in Maine with the MLTI program for some time, offering professional development with Apple Computer.
The SAMR model looks like this…
SAMR is intended to help teachers utilize technology more effectively in their lessons. To start, a teacher can reflect on a lesson they already use, comparing it to the model in order to identify the level of technology integration in the lesson. One point that I thought was important as we discussed the SAMR model, and the experiences of educators attending the session, was that no one will be at the Redefinition level with every lesson, all the time. Not only is that not reasonable to expect, but sometimes a project falls within a “lower” level on the SAMR model, and that is both okay, and appropriate for what is intended.
Lisa Johnson uses the following guide when considering the use of technology in learning, trying to keep the focus on what we can do with the technology and not on the technology itself.
- Does the technology/tool allow for collaboration (e.g. within a school, district, state, nation, globe, experts, PLN)?
- Does the technology/tool allow for feedback and formative assessment?
- Does the technology/tool allow for publishing to an authentic audience and archival?
- Is the technology/tool student-driven?
You can explore the SAMR model, with examples and resources by visiting Lisa Johnson’s info-graphic at Thinglink. Mouse over the active components of the info-graphic to view short pop-ups, and click them to view the full resource. An example that you will find is an assessment of using Nearpod in the classroom. What I like about this example (click on the image below to expand the view), is that it takes a particular technology resource, and illustrates how a teacher might use it at each level of the SAMR model.
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