Rethinking Technology in Education

Education Leadership Institute 2012

Here are 10 ideas that stuck with me from this two day conference.

• Technology cannot replace poor pedagogy.
• Pedagogy, content and technology—one is not more important than the other.
• Traditional classrooms do not engage kids.
• The teacher is not the focal point in today’s classroom.
• Technology breaks down barriers to learning.  Sugata Mitra’s “Hole in the wall” experiment cited.
• Proven methods of learning are:  Socialization, Mobility, Visualization, Storytelling and Gaming.
• Technology in education should not just replace an old way of performing the same task; it should provide new tools that enable curiosity, creativity and collaboration. 
• Technology should challenge current learning models and allow for task redesign.
• Challenge based learning changes the entire concept of teaching.
• Kids are capable of solving problems, collaborating and learning more.

 What does all this mean?  I think it means we must carefully consider how to invest in technology in our classrooms.  We need to have a solid implementation plan that stresses equal importance on pedagogy, content and technology.  We need to understand that today's child lives in a world that is interactive, engaging and collaborative; this world enables them to instantly satisfy their curiosity no matter what the topic.  The world has essentially become their classroom and if we do not adapt our current learning models to involve the technology they view as a necessary appendage then we risk becoming irrelevant as educators.

If you want to see a different version of Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the wall" experiment, then give a 12 year old child an iPad and sit him/her down in front of a television tuned to the Science Channel and watch what happens.  It is amazing to see where their curiosity takes them!

Evernote in the Classroom

As we roll out technology into our schools it is important to provide software tools that enhance the delivery of curriculum so these devices do not simply become time wasting distractions.

One example of a terrific application that provides a conduit for rich note taking and project collaboration is Evernote.  This power software has the ability to type notes, store documents, capture audio or photographs and allows you to organize it all and access it from any device.

Have a look at how this School is using  Evernote, you may just find a whole new way of using technology in your classroom.

App Icons made easy!

I was looking for a way to create nicely polished icons for a web page that had the same appearance as an iPad App.  So I started with an image files like this one:

I was hoping to frame it with rounded edges and give it a nice glossy appearance.

Photo editing software seemed like the obvious place to start but I have found if you are not an experienced user many higher-end photo editors can be frustrating to use.

So I began searching the web for an easier solution and was fortunate to stumble across the ICONJ web site.  This site is easy to use, gives nice configuration options and produces exactly the end result I wanted.

Here is an example of what ICONJ produces in just a few seconds:

Awesome!

Give ICONJ a try and you will have professional looking App icons in seconds.

Web Portals for Schools

The idea is to create a very simple web page that appears much like an Apps page on a mobile device.  The original design idea came from Doug Sadler who is the lead for a new team called ET2You at the W.E.C.D.S.B..  ET2You is short for "Education Technology to you".  Spent a few hours today learning Google Apps Sites and was able to tweak a basic design to come up with a nice functional web page that works well on multiple devices.  Check it out at School Portal.