So one of my favorite questions to discuss with teachers lately has been the question, "We have 1:1 (one-to-one), now what?
I feel that the majority of educators believe that technology is not the "end-all" solution for education, however, technology is an incredibly powerful tool for teachers and students. Educators have pooled together many educational resources and tools for helping student learning. Now, it is time for the next step. This step involves looking at the learning process and seeing how technology can promote 21st century learning skills.
Research has been done to see how students and teachers are utilizing their devices in the classroom and it has been suggested that technology is most often used for lower level thinking skills, the so-called "skill and drill" practices. While this does seem to be the case in my experience, this is only the first step of technology integration.
Now that we have the technology it is time to us to refine the teaching and learning processes to reflect higher level thinking skills.
It seems fitting to quote one of the founding members of Pixar, as this quote embodies this emerging philosophy toward education technology.
"Art inspires the technology. The technology inspires the art."
Here is an example of this philosophy. Technology fulfills some teachers' greatest wishes, such as self-grading assessments. Having this ability has inspired educators to look at assessments in a completely different manner, allowing students to complete portfolios, wiki's, or visual projects, replacing traditional multiple choice, matching, short answer assessments. These assessments require higher level thinking skills and allow for student creativity. Granted, some have been inspired because students could google the answers to the old assessments, due to lower level thinking skills required.
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