There are so many different challenges that technology integration in the classroom presents teachers. From budgets to hesitant parents to broken devices and totally re-vamping your lesson plans and constantly tweaking with lots of trial and error. It can be fun, hugely rewarding, and a big giant headache, too.
But just because it can be a pain and present a ton of hurdles doesn’t mean that schools, teachers, parents, and students shouldn’t embrace it. How many quotes are floating around out there about how challenging things teach us so much more than the things that come easy to us? Or about the importance of failure? Tons. The video below is about embracing the hurdles technology in schools poses. It asks some important questions (which we’ve detailed below).
Important Questions About Technology and Learning
- What do we want technology to do in schools?
- Does more money equal increased learning?
- If we buy a lot of expensive technology and sometimes use it ineffectively, or dangerously, what does that get us?
- Are we asking the right questions about technology, learning, and schools?
- What world will our students exit school into?
- What skills will they need to be successful? Collaboration – Communication – Creativity – Divergent thinking
- We need technology to help foster these skills, and point our students in the right direction
- Is the way we are using technology now turning our students ‘off’ to the people and the world around them?