75: What Plato Said About Writing The role of microcomputers in curriculum and instruction has been debated since they first arrived in schools; some advocate for quick adoption of every new tool while others advocate for avoiding digital technology altogether. Disparate perceptions of emerging information technologies among educators is not a new phenomenon. In his Read More
“So, is my school’s technology good enough?” is a question that principals and curriculum coordinators and superintendents ask—of course they don’t usually ask it when their IT coordinators or staff are within ear shot. The reality is that most school administrators do not have the expertise to assess the IT for which they are responsible. Read More
79: Three Choices When Faced with Technology Technology is a permanent part of society and culture. For decades, scholars who study technology and society have documented the active influences of technology on individuals who experience it and on institutions that reflect it in the organizations that emerge. These effects are particularly acute for educators. The Read More
The question of just what should we educational technology professionals spend their time and energy doing and what school leaders should expect of the IT professionals they hire is one that has been raised by several within my network in the last year or so. The answer that I tend to give is this one: Read More
80: Non-neutrality of Technology In the 21st century, information technology scholars have rediscovered the work of the media theorists who documented the strong and active sociocultural influences of information technology, and they are beginning to study technology as a non-neutral factor in society. Andrew Feenberg (1999), a philosopher and historian of science and technology, captured Read More
Since computers arrived in schools, much of the professional development has been designed to show teachers how to use ICT and how to adopt that ICT into instruction (with the assumption that ICT would be a neutral aspect of the classroom). As the emerging educational paradigm shift is completed, the focus of professional development to Read More
I made this presentation at the 2015 Association of Educational and Communications and Technology conference. Avoiding Red Herrings: Technology Support that Works Abstract Information and computer technology has been incorporated in teaching and schooling for several decades. Despite on-going efforts to provide both technical support to maintain functional systems and support for educators to integrate Read More
This article appeared in a magazine a few years ago… Author’s copy of Turning Flipped Classroom Upside-Down
One of the fundamental changes influencing the emergence of technology ecosystems has been the transition from ICT being used to access information to it being used for interaction. Discourse and interaction are fundamental components of learning environments, as well. When investigating the different venues in the classroom that are available for communication, and thus that Read More
Between 2009 and 2011, I led technology institutes at several schools. During these week-long sessions held in the summer, I worked with teachers to develop technology skills. In most cases, these were taught from the perspective of “a new starting line” as the teachers had become complacent with technology and several new tools (hardware, software, Read More