Reflections from another Year of Tech!

In the education profession we have this fortunate opportunity to end one school year, reflect, refresh and then prepare for the new year ahead. I honestly believe it is through this cycle we better ourselves as professionals and can rise to meet the demands of teaching. As I reflect on this year, these are a few big lessons!

1. We need to be willing to take risks! As I work with teachers the largest barrier is NOT the ideas or EVEN the technology, it is feeling comfortable knowing that your lesson might not go exactly as planned. As teachers and students embrace these risks, they will find some of the greatest opportunities come from the mishaps or the not knowing. We ask this of our students often, but as teachers (control freaks!) we aren’t always comfortable experiencing this for ourselves.

2. Being open to LEARN… Teachers that use technology effectively aren’t “better with technology” they are willing to learn and apply even the most basic skills knowing that it will lead to more growth. People don’t believe me, when I tell them how much I have learned form our Kindergarteners, but truly, we all see things differently and with technology this is a gift. Technology allows and I might say expects us to be willing to see things from multiple angles since there are so many different paths to accomplish a task. As my second graders proudly shared, “We are great at trouble shooting and that is what is most important.”

Which brings me to my next point.

3. Teaching technology is about teaching dispositions.What dispositions do we NEED to develop in students? The two dispositions above would be my starting place, additionally I would say persistence with problem solving and ability to make connections. Teaching a PROGRAM is not teaching technology. Not only do programs change, the programs we use also change.  Building the attributes and viewing technology as a tool to unlock learning is significantly more important than any program. Many people are jumping on the coding bandwagon, but what all of these “coding programs” believe in is developing conceptual understanding of computer science. They will tell you the coding language doesn’t matter, they are changing so frequently, it is the principles of computer science that are valuable.

4. Repetition makes mastery and allows for depth. By repetition I don’t mean drill and kill activities, I mean project based learning that requires students to use technology skills in meaningful and diverse ways. Technology integration has happened when the technology has become invisible. No one talks about how great their colored pencils are, they discuss the merits of the picture created from this tool. Creativity, ingenuity, collaboration can happen when the basics are second nature. If we only spend time in the basics we miss the much larger focus of unlocking the possibilities for learning that can only occur from technology.

5. Seek opportunities that can’t be done with a paper and pencil. In a Science classroom we can discuss the engineering components of a bridge and we can even construct our own bridges. With technology we can go even deeper by video recording our bridge in action, identify flaws in our design after replaying videos, adjusting our bridges and experimenting again. Teachers often look for ways to provide “real world” examples and “authentic experiences”, technology can provide many of these opportunities. Students can have real voice and consider their audience through blogging, research reports can be used to create websites to share this knowledge, mathematical models can be constructed to demonstrate understanding.

As I prepare for next year, my hope is through embracing these ideas we will provide opportunities for students to explore creative endeavors and self expression in authentic ways to connect to our larger world.