Can you identify the support and resistance of educational technology in your educational community?
Are you sometimes in support and other times in resistance of #edtech? That actually sounds right. Educational technology is an amplifier of content and task completion. It makes sense to select the right time, tasks, and content to receive amplification.
When is the right way to support and the right time to resist #edtech?
Are you resisting #edtech instead of supporting it?
The Right Reason
Not all educational experiences are designed for online. Some tasks require collaborative, face-to-face conversations. Some assessments may be more authentic offline, in real-time, and face-to-face. Sometimes, students need to create with their hands. Educationally thought-out experiences which are better because they are experienced offline are a great reason to resist the integration of educational technology.
The Wrong Reason
To react to a perception of over connectedness on the part of students and try to balance for our students is not a good reason to pull the plug. Just as we encourage educators to include educational technology in authentic situations, we should only insist upon offline when that is the only appropriate method to participate. To impose upon our students our opinion of how something should be done could backfire and make the task we promote the scapegoat of their frustration, thinking on how the activity might have been accomplished faster or better online.
Are you really supporting #edtech when you should be resisting it?
Classroom Level Leadership
Pressures on classroom teachers to demonstrate technology might complicate the question of when you should really support versus resist educational technology. Even if you have a good idea of when to support and when to resist, do you see confusion on when #edtech is really useful in the students you share with other teachers?
Students need concrete examples of types of online and offline work. As do some colleagues. Be careful not to just accept any/all #edtech use – wrong use can be worse than non-use!
These examples can be customized for your audience to help with discrete examples. Create department or grade-level guidelines for students and parents (and colleagues who need more guidance) on the types of student work which should/should not be online/offline. This can alleviate
Leaders Providing a Clear Message
Instructional leaders at all levels can help refine the message of how and when to use educational technology. Leaders can support proper use of educational technology, not by elevating the technology, but discussing the context of use of the #edtech. The decision-making process which leads up to the implementation is possibly more important than the use if the educational technology itself.
Leaders can resist requests for hardware or softwares which run counter to the educational goals of appropriate use of #edtech. But they need the moral imperative to follow-up on the root cause of that misconception.
So I want to ask you again – Can you identify the support and resistance of educational technology in your educational community?
Leave a Reply