From the course: Teaching with Technology

Putting the "tech" into "teach"

From the course: Teaching with Technology

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Putting the "tech" into "teach"

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- Before we can jump into specific strategies for teaching with technology, we have to do a few things to get ready. Let's start by looking at how technology supports and advances teaching and learning. Like some animals with shiny objects, some of us are attracted to new and exciting technologies. We constantly upgrade our smartphones and software. We try different apps and websites. Technology enables us to do things we couldn't do before. Like different animals with those same shiny objects, some of us don't even want to get close to new technologies until we understand them better. We wait to upgrade our smartphones and software until a. we're sure it won't break anything, or b. what we use doesn't work anymore. Technology should support what we do everyday. It's fitting that we can put the letters from tech into teach but not the other way around. When it comes to teaching and learning, we can't put the cart before the horse. It doesn't matter which phrase you use, instructional technology, academic technology, educational technology, or plain old ed tech, the word for teaching always comes first. Teaching and learning needs should drive our technology choices. Once you identify those teaching and learning needs though, you'll find that there are usually several technology options to help. In another chapter in this course, we'll consider how we share content and materials for our classes. For example, technology makes it easier than ever to share content in different formats. By giving your students a choice, you support you current practices. Technology makes it possible to flip your classroom or engage your students in content creation. Both of these are examples of advancing teaching and learning. Speaking of engaging students, technology opens up new possibilities for learning activities too. There's a whole chapter in this course with ideas for facilitating interactivity. For example, technology can help facilitate participation in different ways, or increase overall levels of participation up to 100%. I know from own face-to-face classes that the usual suspects are often the only ones to answer questions or contribute ideas. Even if every student is engaged, only one person can talk at a time and there are only so many minutes in a class meeting. Technology makes it possible to continue activities or start new ones outside of the classroom if you want to advance what you and your students do. When it comes to assessing student learning, technology supports a wide range of options as you'll see in the chapter on technology-based assessment. For example, technology extends typical assessment strategies, like quizzes and exams, team projects or student presentations. Technology can support more authentic assessment strategies. These strategies advance students' efforts to show what they know. In other words, students can show they have specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that they'll be asked to use in real life. Now, does technology do everything? Of course not. And if it can do everything, it probably shouldn't. For example, in his book, "Teaching Naked," Jose Bowen describes how to use technology outside the classroom so you can teach and learn without technology inside the classroom. If nothing else, technology allows you to make new choices about how you spend your time with your students. As I mentioned earlier, we have to do a few things to get ready before we can teach with technology. In the rest of this chapter we'll review and possibly rewrite learning outcomes to include technology use, align class resources, activities, and assessments with a new or existing outcomes, and explore universal design for learning principles. Before reviewing any other movies, take a minute to answer the following questions for yourself. In what ways are you considering using technology to support or advance teaching and learning in your class? How have you approached teaching with technology in the past? What would you improve from that experience?

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