At a conference there are a lot of bells and whistles today, for me, it was ROBOTS and AUGMENTED REALITY. I am intentionally attending sessions I have no idea what they are talking about or ideas that stretch my thinking in ways I would have never considered using technology in my classroom. From this I have learned my first lesson:

Just because it is REALLY COOL doesn’t make it an AMAZING TEACHING TOOL. What makes these tools amazing is what the teachers are doing with the curriculum. I sometimes fear that we get a little ahead of ourselves when we think about the TOOL first instead of the THINKING. Robots can be an amazing motivator to get kids coding, but we would have to be intentional about our learning objectives to really make the most out of this tool. Augmented Reality (check this out if you don’t know what it is) could be amazingly motivating, but is the time spent worth the learning achieved. One presenter shared, “When they see something this amazing and unbelievable happen in front of their eyes, I ask them to consider what amazing and unbelievable solutions they might bring to solve some of the problems in our world.” To me that is where all the learning would take place!! When students can create and see innovation, that opens their eyes and allows them to imagine so much more.

I hope that as the education world takes this giant leap with technology we will still keep central to the focus of creating spaces where, “thinking is valued, visible and actively promoted.(Ron Ritchhart)