innovatED
  • Home
  • Contact
  • About the Author

innovated

I'm APP-athetic

9/30/2015

1 Comment

 
APP-athetic
As the ed-tech arms race continues to gain momentum, researchers, trainers, teachers, and school officials have been scrambling to integrate the amazing power of emergent personal technologies into the education process. Specifically, it seems everyone with an interest in education is trying to formalize and articulate the most effective ways to harness these technologies. As the conversion evolves, a disturbing trend has emerged.

Far too many ed-tech eager educators are increasingly focussed on the newest toys. From Twitter chats to casual conversations to blog posts, it is becoming clear that a new niche of "semi-tech savvy teachers" is developing that may ultimately be damaging the vital effort to legitimately use technology as an educational tool. You may have seen them. Ms. Mac loves to proclaim her affection for Apple products and is quick to rattle off an obscure app when asked how she is using technology in her classroom. Mr. Gizmo has a classroom collection of electronic and mechanical toys that makes large corporations jealous, but ask him to give you his best lesson and he stammers about how, "My kids, you know, well, you should see how excited they are when we use the robots." "What are you teaching with those robots?" "Um well, there's a lot of collaboration and they...you know have to learn to use the software, and accomplish goals."

Teachers on the frontline need to experiment with new technologies and they need to refine how best to use them in the classroom, but this effort should never skew into a misplaced focus on toy acquisition. We don't need more toys in school, we need better teaching, better learning opportunities, and better assessment strategies. Technology can help fill that gap, but the tool should never become the main focus.

Some of our schools have the best toys in the world, but are we using them to enhance the educational experience of the students, or just to play? Please, stop talking about your favorite apps and start talking about how you are using technology to improve the learning you are facilitating. In my prior blog posts, it is clear that I am as big an ed-tech fan as there is, but the tools are only as valuable as the craftsman using them. Make sure you are training your craftsmen to use their tools effectively.
1 Comment
Lee link
6/21/2022 02:22:51 am

Great readinng your blog post

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Michael Stone

    Click here to read about the blog's author.

    My Links
    Volkswagen eLabs
    PEF Innovation Hub
    devX PD

    My Books

    Keynotes

    Cleveland Rotary Club
    Innovating Education Through Community Partners

    NEA Foundation The Promise of Public Ed
    Leveraging Teacher Leadership to Increase STEM Education

    US Senate Briefing
    The Need for a National Organizing Body of Digital Fabrication

    NACCE California Symposium
    Scaling Innovation through Partnerships

    Volkswagen eLab Ribbon Cutting
    Why Digital Fabrication can't be an Option

    NSTA STEM Leadership
    Developing, Incubating, and Implementing Public/Private Partnerships that Matter

    Chattanooga Fab Institute
    Revolutionizing Learning through Digital Fabrication

    HCDE Future Ready Institute Launch
    Developing PBL Units with Business Partners

    STEM Fellows Celebration
    Community Partnerships for Teacher Leadership

    TSIN Summit
    Scaling Innovation in Schools

    Remake Learning Days
    Dig Fab in the Community

    America Achieves
    Public/Private Partnerships Panel

    DigiFabCon Chicago
    Digital Fabrication in the Modern Classroom 

    Redesign for Student Success (San Diego)
    Scaling Innovation through Digital Fabrication

    GE Leadership Summit
    Leveraging Innovative Technologies for Learning
    ​
    Texas Open Innovation 

    Emerging Innovations in Education

    Indiana University
    Authentic PBL

    FFT Leading & Learning
    Boston, MA

    Connecting Global Ed

    ​reMake Education Summit
    Keynote

     National Governor's Asc.
    Coding with Governors

    US Dept of Education
    Round Table with Secretary John King

    TSIN Summit
    K-12 Pathways for CS

    Google Headquarters
    Ed Foo
    ​
    NASA Headquarters

    K-12 Education Panel
    ​​
    White House
    Reducing the Racial Gap in Computing

    Boston Museum of Science
    Teaching with Toys

    US Dept of Education
    MSP CS Proposition
    Tweets by @CoachStone12

    Archives

    October 2018
    December 2017
    April 2017
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    July 2014
    April 2014
    September 2013
    June 2013


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from IntelFreePress, Nina Matthews Photography, me_chris, 401(K) 2013, Guilherme Nicholas, .v1ctor Casale.
  • Home
  • Contact
  • About the Author