Based on your experiences, what are the greatest challenges for leveraging technology to empower learning in your classroom and school?  As I consider my thoughts on this topic, the following image comes to mind:

I always get excited about using technology in my classroom and my students enjoy it too.  I’m fortunate enough to have a few laptops that stay in my room so my students work in small groups with Vernier probeware in most cases.  However, that glorious plan usually goes out the window, like these lovely monitors did!  I usually end up having to try and troubleshoot a laptop and one group ends up splitting into other groups because their computer won’t log onto the network, recognize the student ID, recognize the probeware, connect to the printer, … (you fill in the blank!)  As educators, we have to be prepared to teach “on the fly” when our original lesson doesn’t work, but I REALLY hate trying to fix laptops every time I use them!

I will be the first to admit that I’m not as versed at using cell phone technology and apps in my classes.  Our school system does have a policy against having the phones out.  However, being the physics teacher does mean that my students are interested in learning, so I believe that if I found some cool, engaging apps, they would buy in and use them as directed during class.  So far, my experiences with the phones have been polleverywhere.com surveys.  This week at NCCAT we did get a numberl of new ideas for the classroom.  My disappointment lies in the fact that most of them were Apple/iPhone apps and the Android version isn’t available.

I think that brings me full circle to the dilemma most teachers face – the cool thing that’s available isn’t available to all students and what is available to all students may not be the coolest thing out there.  So, my laptops may be getting older and they don’t all work on any given day, but I keep on fixing and teaching my students that the technology is to enhance their learning, not to do it for them.  Unfortunately, many teachers give up on their ideas after this kind of experience.  I think lack of time and/or resources ultimately forces teachers to find another route.  Who has hours each week to spend on figuring out a way to give 100% of their students the necessary technology in order to complete one assignment?  I don’t believe there will ever be a time when this issue is solved because technology runs light years ahead of hardware in our school sytems.  I can only hope to find some apps and websites that will engage my students and that are available to the majority and that cooperative learning will take place…just like I had originally planned!

photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/practicalowl/504522097/”>practicalowl</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/”>cc</a>