Tech2Go

The title does not refer to the Whitney Houston hit - instead I want to ask you a question that has been in my thoughts lately. How will we know when technology is being used well in our classrooms?

What criteria pops in your mind? What data are most useful for answering the question. What kind of rich learning are we hoping for regardless of the technology component?

 I’ve been reading books by technology naysayers since Clifford Stoll’s Silicon Snake Oil hits the shelves. It helps to balance my natural tendency to dive full-speed-ahead with tech tools. But the question I pose goes well beyond some checklist of criteria or standardized test result.

In 2007, and beyond, I hope K-12 schools can recognize the growing gap between the way our students use technology in their lives and the way they use technology at school. If you found this blog you know that technology can be a powerful way to know and learn.

Convincing digital immigrant leaders that evidence of accountability in complex systems will be a complex data set is not an easy task. Can we tackle this big question together? Can we raise the level of conversation about educational technology above the student-computer ratio? 

Eisner encourages us to become connoisseurs of learning; Moersch asks what kinds of higher-level thinking is present; Lave and Wenger or Seeley-Brown and Duguid remind us to build communities of practice;  Dwyer notes that teaching will “look different”; Dewey would note that test taking is not the experience he had in mind. So many great educators to inform what our practice could be!

My posting is getting too long - I’d love to hear how you know the technology tools are making a difference….