Professional Development NECC Workshops- “Hands on” or “Brains On”

I’m finalizing my presentations for NECC (2 workshops and 1 session). Conducting a workshop is an interesting game. People want to learn new information. They want to practice it. However, they often do not want to spend time in workshops which focus more on developing new thinking skills involving technology than on the actual “technology.” I tend to give “brains on” workshops instead of “hands on” workshops. I always build in time for people to think about the new skill such as using Flickr and to plan how to integrate it into their classroom. Yet at this most critical time, the actual implementation of the skill, is when many participants zone out or leave. Usually I build in time to for them to share their implementation ideas with another participants so that they can get feedback. Participants often do not want feedback.

If I show them sites all during workshops, they are happy. However, when I stop and ask them to seriously think about how they will use this technology to improve student learning, I find their interest descending quickly.

Do we want our students to be “show and tell” or “show and think”? Do we think about the hard questions about technology use so that we use the technology in a way that truly benefits our students learning? Or do we just want to learn the technology?

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