Adapting Technology to the Classroom

As more schools adapt a technology-approach to learning, we are beginning to see the challenges they are faced with. However, we are also seeing the benefits and impacts technology can have when adapted correctly into a classroom.

Larissa Pahomov, an English and Journalism at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, gave us the three questions teachers should consider in order to make this adaptation easier and more meaningful.


1.    What am I already doing well and how can technology support that?
2.    Will technology get in the way of my classroom’s best practices?
3.    Where is the possibility for tech to transform my teaching?

By breaking these questions down, we can see the steps that we need to take, to truly see the benefits of using technology in the classroom.

What am I already doing well and how can technology support that? Teachers are already accountable for what happens in their classroom. They are also responsible for providing feedback to the principals, parents, school boards, and the students themselves. With so many people involved in the process, technology can help to send the right stakeholders the right information, faster and conveniently.

A big hesitation heard when discussing educational technology is that they will be a distraction for students. They’ll be more interested in playing games on the new devices rather than do the work they are assigned.

By completing a class survey online or by using their phones during the lecture, it was found that not only are students integrating the technology, but they are able to keep the technology use focused, and on topic. Students have to listen to the lecture in order to answer the survey, keeping their attention on the teacher. Cloud-based brainstorming activities also involve the technology in a way that keeps students focused, but engaged.

History is littered with failed attempts to “revolutionize” learning through innovative technology. Fortunately, these struggles have taught us one very important lesson: in order for technology to improve learning, it must “fit” into students’ lives…not the other way around. As a result, E-Learning was born.

Clarke, 2002   

Will technology get in the way of my classroom’s best practices? The purpose of educational technology is not to replace every previous practice used in classrooms. We still know children learn best when they have written something physically. But technology gives more avenues for learning than previously thought possible.

There is no magic wand; nothing is faultless…You’re right to be skeptical, and to ask tough questions. We’re here to rethink teaching and learning from the ground up. Where are we now; and where are we going? And crucially, what’s possible?

Terry Heick

We now have the ability to have children ask the teacher for homework help from home; or even better, discuss the problems with their fellow students on a class forum.  

Where is the possibility for tech to transform my teaching? The possibility to redefine the role of the teacher exists with technology. It can allow for a teacher’s content expertise to shine and showcase their coaching ability. Now that technology makes it more natural for students to work harder than the teacher, what they really need is guidance in next steps, not to be told the step by step process. Technology allows the students to make their own discoveries with the teacher monitoring their success and occasionally pointing them in a better direction.

By investigating and answering these three questions, teachers can ask how technology can fit in their classroom and the needs of their students on a daily basis; and by adapting it correctly ensures a seamless and meaningful transition.

How to Leverage Technology to Meet the Common Core Standards

When trying to find lessons that meet the common core standards, it can sometimes be difficult to envision how using technology in the classroom can help. Ben Rimes, a K12 Educational Technology Coordinator in Michigan, took it upon himself to investigate the practical uses for technology in the classroom, and how it can be used to meet the standards.

To Listen to his podcast interview with Vicki Davis go here.

His first step was copying all of the common core standards (specifically those dealing with technology and college/career readiness) and putting them into a word cloud generator. Words he saw repeated were: relationships, understanding, collaboration, using, publishing, and writing.

“With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others.”

- Common Core State Standards

Focusing on the word 'publishing', this implies an audience; this could mean tweeting, blogging, using Google docs, or Wikis. Students can collaborate on Google docs and Wikis, which allows them to view the process of their work.

Publishing can also open up the use of videos in the classroom. Videos have the ability to bring the real world into the classroom, as well as the classroom into the real world. By recording students working, teachers can use it to review their process to improve for the future. Video can be used to capture the real honest moments of the learning process.

One of the biggest concerns using technology in education has been privacy. Some parents are less than comfortable with the idea of publishing work onto the internet; however, there are ways work can be published, but kept private from the general public. If students collaborate on Google docs—which is private—it can then be published to a classroom blog or within the school, while keeping their identity private.

There are so many possibilities when discussing educational technology, but it’s up to teachers to find what works best for them and their students. 

To Listen to his podcast interview with Vicki Davis go here.

Top 50 Edtech Resources at ISTE 2014

The Digital Dilemma: The Print to Digital Transition for K-12 Education

February 5, 2014
Paul Laporte
Digital Content Publisher
CCPInteractive.com

It was after the second world war when the influx of “ready-made” print content known as “Supplemental” began to really grow. Also at this same time, content to address a region's specific curriculum requirements began to be widely adopted and was known as “Text Books”. For over the next 50 years, School Boards and Educators had ONLY these two options as the key content and curriculum foundations for teaching a nation's K-12 students. For all those years, Classroom technology was only the overhead projector, which displayed this print content over clear acetate. I’m sure most educators long for that simpler time when a class lesson went without interruption and the only “hardware” issue was a broken chalk.

For the K-12 Educator, the first digital version of content to widely be distributed began in the early '90s, in PDF format. Throughout the next 20 years, and somewhat still today, savvy teachers preferred this format primarily due to increased availability by being able to purchase this format online. Additionally, the PDF format is easier to store on a desktop, and one has the ability for 1^st generation printing rather than making a copy of a print. For digital, this format is still relatively low tech and appeals to most who have not used truly great digital content.

By the year 2000, those two long-held key foundational content options expanded and transformed to a multitude of digital hardware options. K-12 education had stepped up their game considerably, learning from the invasion of consumer electronics and the internet expansion; therefore making the need for more digital in the classroom essential to better engage young digital learners. This leading revolution advanced the content buying habits of Educators and Curriculum Directors by including expanded Technology Departments who were now responsible for digital hardware. The idea was to better show content and curriculum on specific educational-suited devices like Interactive Whiteboards, Digital Projectors, Slates and soon after handheld Tablets and BYODs.

Unlike the previous 50 years, Schools and School Boards put enormous efforts into acquiring digital hardware, oftentimes at the expense of the curriculum content. It used to only be about the content, now Educators have the daunting task not only to choose a device, rather what operating system, assessment integration, connectivity options, one-to-one bandwidth, and security and loss prevention, to mention a few. For plenty of schools, this technology has done the intended opposite by complicating and sometimes diminishing the delivery of curriculum content for students in exchange for the latest shiny new hardware device. 

PDFs now add little value operating on these new robust digital devices. Teachers and Students demand a higher level of engaging interactive content. The purchasing of great digital content for these new devices were seldom included in the package, as the hardware manufacturer's distribution channel had no interest or did not understand the value of content. The manufacturers and their resellers need for a sustainable aftermarket is imperative, so they choose training programs instead of content. Therefore, with the delivery of the new hardware device brought in-service training for Educators on how to use the new electronic device and how to use proprietary programs to create content. Hardware manufacturers always used examples of the “Exemplary Teacher” who made all their own digital content; sadly that has proven to be the exception. This offering was a great solution for the hardware manufacturer, not so good for the Classroom Teachers and their Students.

Today, even more so than the earlier 50 years, very few Teachers make their own content. Most are too busy with day-to-day teaching, increased class management, assessment and after-school programs, to name a few. In the old days, there were far less demands on the Classroom Teacher. The standards were less demanding and foremost of curriculum content was purchased in supplemental or text book print versions by the School Board, or bought from the pockets of individual Teachers. To do the same now, great digital curriculum content is often more expensive than its old print counterpart and often out of budget for individual Teachers. Also, many regions have eliminated the Text Book, even the PDF version as it provides little value to the new hardware devices, thus exacerbating this content dilemma.

It is clear why Teachers seldom made their own content when it was a print format, now they are making even less content in a digital format. For most Teachers, it takes considerably longer and is significantly harder to make engaging interactive content that will appeal to the new digital learners, utilize the best features of the new device, and get it to operate successfully. Most Principals will agree that unfortunately, many of the Interactive Whiteboards and Digital Projectors in their classrooms have only ever been used as large TV screens or fancy electronic chalkboards. By 2006 in Europe and 2009 in North America, it was clear that the majority of teachers were not going to make their own digital content for the Interactive Whiteboard or Digital Projectors, so the lack of use of the devices became embarrassingly obvious.

Less users quickly translated in lagging new installs of these “Big Screen” devices in K-12 schools. New and existing hardware manufacturers sighted this as the “wrong device” and quickly saw an opportunity to market the tablet as the unique new mobile hardware solution. The first iPad was introduced to education in 2010 and by 2012 it was quickly touted as the “new solution” for K-12 classrooms. Android tablets quickly jumped on this, and today the market is now flooded with 100s of similar digital solutions. Furthermore, there are 1000s of individual “apps” cashing in on this wild west trend; unfortunately, at best offering gamification with limited pedagogy, no consistency, and un-proven learning foundations.  

Now it is 2014, and the shine has already begun to wear off many tablets. Why? Again for the same reason, not enough great content pre-loaded on the device! Also, some Educators say that it takes enormous resources to load and manage individual apps, to keep them all powered up and to have them all stay connected. Unfortunately — going the way of the Interactive Whiteboards — many of the tablets in classrooms are simply used for games and outside educational web browsing. Over the last decade, there always seems to be money for the latest classroom hardware device, but not for engaging digital curriculum software, even though we know that classroom hardware is simply a platform to interact with engaging content. This is changing; the waste is very visible and we now realize that with no ready-made content, the latest hardware device is almost useless. Like a laptop without software, educational hardware is simply an expensive and poor light source.

Tablets and big screens are purposeful and will continue to be the rage in K-12 Classrooms; however, we have learned from the past and are now migrating to the paramount “total solution” that will be sustainable.

Many of the great digital content publishers feel that the “total solution” for a K-12 classroom is a “Big Screen” at the front with teacher-led instruction for clarifying the key curriculum concepts along with student hand-held devices, primarily for research and assessment. The key difference is that successful hardware manufacturers will hard-bundle complete digital curriculum packages with every unit sold, giving Classroom Teachers and Students a true “complete solution” to effectively use the power of their hardware. Technology and Curriculum buyers will work together and ensure that the install of any new hardware will include a complete suite of ready-made curriculum content. Content is king — always has been, always will be.