Don’t let tech get in the way of good teaching.
Often we who love technology spend a great deal of time and effort implementing technology in our classrooms. In most cases it is a bennificial endevor, but there are times when we get to focused on the tech that learning suffers. The biggest trap is time. Often we will spend inordinate ammounts of time on a project with limited learning potential in order to implement a technology aspect to it. Other traps we fall into is testing a technology with the class and finding we need to use time to trouble shoot instead of teach. Upgrading to the most rexoent versions of software can also present problems. One example of this is that I have upgraded to the most recient version of office on my teacher computer but the student lab is still on the previous version. When I show students how to do something it does not match what they will see when they try it. Technology can be a great enhancement to our teaching but we must be aware of it’s use to make surebit does not get in the way.
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Comments
I am a college student on my way to being a teacher and I completely agree with you. It just seems that more and more we are relying on technology doing everything for us. It seems that teachers are using all this technology but in the wrong way. They are letting the programs teach and they are just guiding the students through, which in my mind isn’t the way it should be. Since every person learns differently we need to use technology to help reach out to everyone and make sure that what were teaching isn’t just going in one ear and out the other.
I have been teaching a few years now and I have also come to learn that technology is not an end all to education. Technology can be extremely useful for student learning but of course it must coincide with good planning. I am a big fan of using webquests in my curriculum even though I just started to utilize them. They allow students to use technology to explore concepts on their own. The first webquest assignment I shared with my students was on the greenhouse effect. They loved the interactive resources and animations I directed them to because they were entertaining, but they were making real connections with the concepts by answering thought provoking questions based on the resources. I’m sure other people have a million other examples of how technology can be integrated in the classroom with good results. Luckily, you are sitting in front a machine right now that you can use to find out about them!
Some great comments! I completely agree with you. As the Assistant Director of Technology at my school, I have seen our technology infrastructure expand so much that anytime there is a hiccup in the network, or something goes down, many people are completely immobilized. Many teachers lessons rely solely on their laptops, PowerPoint presentations, and SmartBoards. Who is doing the teaching here? The teacher or the technology?
On of the things I was most happy with was the way we rolled out our Faculty Laptop Program. At first we made very few demands of teachers regarding the use of their laptops. We wanted them to get comfortable with their computers, develop routines, and adapt to incorporating the technology into their curricula. Only then did we begin requiring daily period attendance, grade reporting, and email communication.
I understand the frustration related to technology used as a tool to deliver instruction. One must consider technology in this situation as in trial and error. And the same way that regular instruction is reassessed by the teacher if students are not learning or not showing interest, then the same way that the technology-driven lessons should be reassessed if the teacher notices the same negative effect in the students. It’s also a good practice if a teacher prepares a technology-driven lesson with a back up method in case technology fails. The same way a teacher must know and show interest in the subject being taught, the teacher should also show total confidence delivering instruction with technology, this means that the teacher should be comfortable troubleshooting the technology been used if any problems arise and keep that troubleshooting time to the minimum. Technology to deliver instruction should be used wisely otherwise it defeats the purpose.
Schools need to make sure that the technology that they are going to purchase is suitable for the school. If the technology is to hard to adapt then it is hard for the teachers and students to utilize it, and it goes to waste. The point of technology is schools is to help students learn faster and more efficient. If the technology cannot help to do that then its the fault of the administrators to get technology that will. It is not the fault of the teachers if they try to integrate it and it fails, because they were giving the products by the administrators. I would say that the teachers should try and get comfortable with the material before they introduce it but they are not the ones to blame.
We have this problem at the university that I am currently enrolled at. Many students still do much of their work using the old Mircosoft Word, while all of the computers owned by the university have been upgarded to the new version. This also included, I believe, all the computers that are in the professors offices. The problem is that when a student sends a professor a document or vice versa, the format of the document does not always match up. Also, coming from a student perspective, it is very time consuming when a professor does not know how to work the “technology” within the classroom and has to ask a student for help. It can also make the professor look bad in front of the entire class.