Leveraging Technology in the Classroom

Kids know everything about technology, right? Leveraging technology is just about going for it, right? Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

One set of trendy terms that really bugs me is the analogy of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants.” This idea came from an article by Marc Prensky in 2001 that proposed the idea that children born more recently have been born with a silver device in their mouths, rather than a silver spoon. People of my generation are considered immigrants because we have had to learn technology because we weren’t born with the technology in our hands. Somehow the idea of technology access became synonymous with efficient and effective use of technology. I don’t buy it. Students today are used to have access to all kinds of technology, but they are not aware how to harness this technology for the purpose of learning. Facebook, video games, and email do not constitute the use of technology in the learning environment. What does this little soapbox rant have to do with leveraging technology? Well, in my opinion, leveraging technology is the classroom is becoming increasingly difficult because it is so simple.

Leveraging technology and using technology are two totally different things. Using technology is simple. Students can access the internet to perform research. They can word process in Google Docs to write a report. They can interview someone over email. They can create a Glogster presentation to share something they have learned. But, is this leveraging technology? If students can accomplish the same goals with an encyclopedia, a phone call, a type writer, or a piece of poster board, have we really done something transformative with our classrooms? I am totally pleading guilty to this, but my goal is something more.

As I move through my ed tech journey, I am challenged to find more ways to shift my own thinking and classroom practices to find ways to make the technology that I use in my classroom more intentional in creating learning shifts. I want my students to take on greater and greater responsibilities with their own learning, so that my role as a teacher becomes more focused on helping to deliver content AND developing students into self-directed and self-motivated learners. Leveraging technology has to be about creation of new content, analysis and synthesis of concepts, and the evolving STEM idea of continuing to review and revise ideas in learning. I want my students to understand and use technology to its learning potential. I’m up for the challenge, but I’m not naive to the climb!