What technology do I use?
My Milieu
I am not teaching right
now but I would like to reflect on my years in an IB school about 10 years ago
when the use of technology in education was at the critical point of explosion
in India. We had laptops with free Wi-Fi but no idea how to use them. We had
smart classes that very few teachers used, and the kids also had laptops but
used them mostly to watch movies sprawled in the corridors.
I would also draw from
my experiences as a freelancer in the past 10 years and my observations and
inferences as I worked with entrepreneurs in education technology. I find huge
number of investments made to build tech products for schools or kids at home.
However, most seem to have very little base of a designer with experience in
teaching.
The 7 Principles
I feel instead of asking ‘what technology do I use?’ we need to ask ourselves, what is the education problem?
In ideating on the possible solutions, we can ask ourselves if:
(a) technology will add value,
(b) it is sustainable,
(c) it allows multiple users,
(d) cost is in control,
(e) it is reliable and
(f) easy to use (Winthrop &
Smith, 2012, pp.40).
I don’t think that anyone could have put it better. In the IB school that I taught, laptops and wifi were given for it was the ‘in thing’. A Learning Management System called ‘veracross’ (Veracross, n.d) was bought for IB expected it. However, at no place did we have any rigorous training, and we were on our own. I found the LMS very handy for I did not need to maintain written records and jumped at it.
However, there were teachers who maintained written records as well as the LMS records for they did not trust technology.
I loved it as it reduced the time that I
took to maintain records and the possibility of errors was minimal. For
example, I did not have to calculate weighted average of the formatives and
that led to me trying out having many formatives without resorting to maximum
marks to be a multiple of 10 as it leads to easiest calculations! I did not
have to remind the kids for homework for it was all uploaded on veracross
(Veracross, n.d). Yes, some kids did try the ‘internet did not work’ way out
but I reminded them of cyber cafes in all neighborhoods in the late nineties.
My use of Technology
For my lessons, tired of stepping over the students as they lay them sprawled in corridors oblivious of the world around them, I decided to make use of the laptop and wifi by mailing tasks to them, flipping the class using the web-based material and also handing them research projects.
This was accepted widely by the middle and high school
math kids and suddenly learning was at their pace, in a collaborative space and
they could listen to their music while working. I found myself slowly redundant
in the classroom as students and technology worked well with each other.
The students did try to
take things easy by copying from the internet for projects or opening face book
while working. I tackled them as they came. For tackling copying, I asked them
for a viva with the project. For Face book, I accepted defeat and simply carved
a Face book time within the class. For students who could not manage a charged
laptop, I gave them choice ‘laptop or textbook’ and suddenly their there was no
issue. For students who found it hard to handle the glare of the screen for
long, I gave them choice of a textbook.
Conclusion
End of the day, we need to go back to the first question, ‘what is the educational blocker?’
and
‘Can technology solve it in a sustainable fashion that helps us to diversify it for all?’
We need to remember that we are educators using technology for the
classroom and not vice versa. Take it as one more tool to be used for teaching
kids how to math and life skills.
References
- Veracross. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.veracross.com/.
- Winthrop, R. & Smith, M. S. (2012). A new face of education: Bringing technology into the classroom in the developing world. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/01_education_technology_shearer.pdf
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