Focus on Technology

On Greg Whitby’s claim that focus on technology is a waste of time, “I agree with his statement”. But let me explain what I mean. For a parent at home, they see their kids playing games on their iPad’s and Xbox’s and having difficulty focusing on their schoolwork. School teachers find that their student’s are generally more tech savy but it doesn’t seem to be helping them be better learners. Why?

Rather the focus should be on  teaching and learning, the core business of any school. Obviously the the skills needed for a student to succeed in the 21st century has changed and evolved. However technology is just a means to achieve optimal learning. As a teacher we need to ask how can I maximise the learning opportunities on the content I am about to teach. How can this be best done efficiently? Can it explore difficult concepts better? Does technology has the tools for me to achieve this? Then we need to assess and see which technology can be relevant. Technology integration should create more depth in learning, allowing students to demonstrate and extend the concepts they’ve have learned.

Yes, therefore just introducing technology in the classroom is not going to change anything. By allowing kids to graph their equations on an iPad rather than on a graph paper is merely substitution. This task needs to be extended further.

In a nutshell, I think maybe that’s what Greg is referring to. Technology definitely has a important role in teaching and learning in my opinion.