Suppl_eMINTS

How We Teach Technology

I often read David Warlick’s 2¢ Worth blog in between planning, scheduling, and going on classroom visits. The other day, Warlick posted on the topic of methods for learning technology versus approaches. Teaching students the method of using technology is like giving them the steps in which to complete a task. On the other hand, students use technology every day by employing an approach that encourages them to test things out, explore, use some basic patterns found in other types of software, etc.

Warlick contends (or the guy he cites, Garr Reynolds) that by teaching systematic processes to our students, we limit their creativity and motivation for using technology. I couldn’t agree more. This is why I often avoid step-by-step instructions when introducing new software. I have found that most of the teachers I work with learn the software better when they work through it. If I can facilitate that learning through experience, then my teachers are more likely to make their own connections with the software.

This all goes along with eMINTS’ promotion of inquiry-based teaching methods. Your students are naturally inquisitive enough to figure out their own ways to make the technology work for them. We just have to facilitate that learning by providing experiences that encourage exploration.

___

Since I’m into citing other people’s work today, another daily read for me is Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed. Richardson ,like many in the ed-tech world, loves the work of Clay Shirky, an expert in the networks of Web 2.0. Anyway, Richardson quoted Shirky for his “quote of the day”…

I’m just so impatient with the argument that the world should be slowed down to help people who aren’t smart enough to understand what’s going on. It’s in part because I grew up in a generation that benefited enormously from not doing that. Right? The baby boomers, when we were young, we had zero, zero patience for the idea that people who are in their fifties in the ’70s and ’80s should somehow be shielded from cultural changes because somehow the stuff that we were doing was upsetting them. So, now it’s our turn and we ought to just suck it up.

Teachers who have signed on for eMINTS training are not sitting back while the rest of the world moves ahead. You have chosen to update your skill set and to prepare students with 21st century skills. Good for you for making such a commitment to your students.