"The competencies needed for technology integration are now requisite for pre-service teachers. Any student could rattle off the technologies they use on a daily basis. The challenge is to help them see that the technology they use for everyday pleasure, productivity, and personal use can be incorporated into their future classrooms." — Cheri Toledo, assistant professor, Curriculum and Instruction
(January 16, 2008) Cheri Toledo has held a multitude of teaching and advising positions throughout her career. From providing marriage and family therapy, to teaching English, to coaching women's college volleyball her occupational path has been anything but mundane. Toledo continued that trend in the late 1990's when—upon reflecting on the future of education—she decided to make an additional change. After receiving her doctorate in Technology and Learning from United States International University, Toledo moved to Illinois State to contribute and expand her knowledge on the technology field.
In her five years at Illinois State, Toledo has taught 36 different classes and 11 different subjects within Curriculum and Instruction due to the rapid changes in the field. "Even when I teach the same class from semester to semester I have to change the curriculum significantly. A major component of this need is because technology is changing rapidly. The technology that I use now in Instructional Media and Technology did not even exist for the common person when I taught the course in 2002."
As an instructor of online courses and classroom technology integration, she has taken advantage of her motivating and upbeat personality she developed while coaching sports. As an example, she was approached by three of her current undergraduate students who were confused about an issue. Toledo quickly diffused the situation and encouraged the students to review their "game-plan" together and move on. The students responded receptively to her problem-solving suggestion. Group projects and problem-solving are a large part of Toledo's teaching style. Her philosophy is that students need to take responsibility for their own learning. This is one of the main reasons Toledo uses projects as the core curriculum in her classroom. Convincing students to take their own education by the reigns is less difficult in her graduate courses, though undergraduate students gradually become more receptive to her course curriculum. "My undergraduate students this semester are beginning to grab a hold of that idea. They understand that it gives them more power. Because things are very open in my classroom, they have many choices and opportunities to engage in and use the basic content and focus of the class to get more out of it." Toledo attributes the smoother transition to her graduate students' ability to immediately implement techniques and projects into their classrooms. Conversely, undergraduates need an extra boost of encouragement to get the most out of each class.
While Toledo readily admits there are some elements of a face-to-face course that do not transition perfectly into online classes, there are aspects of online courses that work more effectively. Toledo points to online discussions as an example. "When I conduct an online discussion with my class, everyone has the opportunity to enter into the conversation." When it comes to online discussions, however, the right questions must be asked. This was the subject of her article, "Does Your Dog Bite" which is a play off of the Peter Sellers' Pink Panther movie when Inspector Clouseau approached a dog and became hesitant. Clouseau asked the apparent dog owner if his dog bites. The hotel clerk responded saying that his dog does not. Then when Clouseau pet the dog, he was promptly chomped on. Clouseau immediately looked to the hotel clerk who then admitted that the present dog was not his. Learning to ask the right questions is a vital part to online discussions. "Asking the right questions extends the discussion past the ‘oh that was a nice post, thank you' level which is what a lot of students start out with as opposed to the successfully posed questions in the article, which were a Socratic method," said Toledo.
Toledo also completed a study with colleague Vicky Morgan. The study compared responses from students of online classes when she returned handwritten comments to papers as opposed to typed-written ones. Through the technology of a tablet PC, Toledo was able to personalize the teacher-student relationship, something Toledo contends to be a surmountable obstacle in distance teaching.
In addition, Toledo participates in an international online production entitled, Women of Web 2.0. As Toledo explains, it represents the degree to which, as argued in Thomas Friedman's novel The World Is Flat, technology has torn down the traditional barriers that have hindered international collaboration. Via the tools of Web 2.0, Toledo has connected her students with classrooms across state and international borders to participate in conversations with educators involved with these tools. Last spring, five students from Toledo's Educational Technology doctoral class were interviewed by the Women of Web 2.0. They were asked to comment on the development of their technology skills and technology integration in their own classrooms as a result of being in Toledo’s class. The presentation included participants and viewers from several countries including Britain, New Zealand, China, and Australia. Toledo also had her students shadow online conferencing between high schools in Georgia and Bangladesh. Students successfully communicated on a common subject across two continents, in this case, Friedman’s book. Eventually the project expanded to include three additional schools from other countries. These students divided up some of their work with another classroom, something Toledo sees as an invaluable skill. "Outsourcing is one of the skills that students need to learn today more than ever. Collaboration and working with people from other cultures is a concept I want to encourage on the undergraduate and graduate level," Toledo said.
Presently, Toledo is researching the effectiveness of back-channeling (otherwise known as chat casting or instant messaging) within an educational setting. Toledo’s students have observed back-channeling in a Georgia classroom. She sees enormous potential in the communication tool. The study will have an international connection as Toledo's colleague from Montreal, Sharon Peters, will collaborate on the study. Additional planned research includes the chronicling of students' progress through her current Instructional Media and Technology course. Toledo and colleague Darci Harland are teaching the same course and anticipate following students for one semester, coming up with rich data from student responses. "The plan is to follow them and see how they learn, what they think is going to happen when they leave the course, and if they are able to use these things in the future. We will do some videotaping and show what we do in the class and document students' perceptions and reactions," said Toledo. While keeping an eye on the future, Toledo is committed to providing the most relevant skills for teachers to communicate with students in classrooms that are increasingly driven by technology. Her initial resolution to enter the field may have been spontaneous, but her work since has been deliberate and focused.
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