Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...

Quick! How can we make technology work in education?!

I’ve heard plenty of talk and unfilled promises of technological revolution and the role technology can play in education.

And I think most of it is utter nonsense.

The effective use of technology in education depends on three things:

1) The relationship of the teacher to the technology
2) Effective and real in-class support for technology use
3) Relevant and real connections between content and the technology. 

On 03 April 2007, Kelly Christopherson inscribed the following thoughts about this post:

Bill, just want some clarification. What do you mean be number 1? If the teacher has no relationship to the technology, will that not be different and require much more than, say, someone who is very adept at using technology?
#2 - What do you classify as effecitive and real in-class support? Someone who is available all day to help teachers with technology problems or someone who is there to help teachers link technology and ideas or someone who does both?
#3 - What do classify as real connections? Is using a wiki to do group work real? Or does it have to apply to “real” life?
These three are kind of ambiguous in what you are trying to outline. One thing I’d include is the time to integrate and work with the technology. Another is ability to use web2.0 applications to ease repetitive tasks for both the teacher and the students.
I’d probably include support from administration for the use of such tools.
As a teacher who uses the tools, an administrator who supports their use and the in-school tech support, I find that the three things you mention may cover most of the areas but these are very different for each teacher depending on knowledge and time. I see it being much more complicated than three steps but I could be wrong.