Improving Student Learning Through Your and Their Technology Use

A colleague sent me an email about an article I had written. He complained that I included too much technology in the article. He does not think that teachers regularly use technology. When I used to work in a rural school, the new male teachers all spent their planning and lunch time on the library computers (comparing car prices and seeing sports results). They did not use technology in their classrooms.

Some questions are:

Do you use technology on a regular basis in your classroom (daily or weekly)?
Do your students use technology on a regular basis in your classroom (daily or weekly)?
How many different technology do you use during a quarter?
How many different technology do your students use during a quarter?
What are the advantages of each of these different technology?
When you use technology, do you use it mainly for Bloom’s lower level thinking activities (note taking, telling about) or mainly for Bloom’s higher level thinking (analysis, evaluate, synthesis)?
When your students use technology, do they use it for Bloom’s lower level thinking activities (note taking, telling about) or for Bloom’s higher level thinking (analysis, evaluate, synthesis)?

Do students consume material using technology or do they produce material using technology?

Do you use technology to take the students out of the four walls of the classroom (Internet searching does not count) or does your technology use keep them within the four walls of the classroom?
How?

Does your technology use promote students knowing about their progress in the standards or does your technology use only give students their grades?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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Varied Technologies or a Hammer?

Abraham Maslow said: “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail.”

How often do you expose teachers to many different technologies with specific subject area examples? The exposure needs to be more than a brief written description, the teachers need to hear, see, and use it. How often do you go beyond a “The Power of PowerPoint” workshop to an “Improving Students’ English Skills through 14 Different Technologies” workshop in which teacher get to try out many different technologies?

How do you expose teachers to these technologies in such ways that they see how their students can use the technologies to progress in the standards? How do you expose teachers to newer technologies in such ways that they see the advantages of using those technologies in their classroom? How do you expose teachers to newer technologies in such ways that they see how easy the technologies are to implement in the classroom?

Do you show them shiner hammers or different tools?

© Harry Grover Tuttle, 2007

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