I often hear people question whether teachers are willing to embrace technology, but if we really want to transform teaching and learning, I think the ...
In this article from EdSurge, written by Dr. Katie Martin of AltSchool, she provides 3 different classrooms each at different levels of comfort with technology. The first represented anti-technology; the teacher was old-school and had her students copying map locations from an atlas, an exclusively paper activity, even though iPads were relatively available and in front of them. The second represented “compliance and standardization” using technology rather than genuinely personalized learning; each student just went to class, logged on, and did the lessons one by one. Though they moved at their own pace, the material wasn’t differentiated for each student. The last was Martin’s best example: the teacher “co-created the learning experiences based on the learning objectives and students’ interests.” The project in this third classroom was basically creating a form of service learning, as the students, in just 4th grade, had to go out into their communities and talk to businesses about solutions to their challenges. Technology played an integral part in their research and presentation.
Martin really broke up 3 possible categories teachers could fall in when it comes to ed tech. They either ignore, overuse, or, the ideal case, empower through technology. She does a great job illustrating the idea that it’s not technology that will make schools better, it’s better teaching. Students can have access to technology, but it depends on how their teachers allow them to use it that determine how successful they will be not only as students but as citizens, and also how they’ll fit into the workforce.