Lessons Learned

Dave Navis will be joining us for this week’s SOS podcast where we will discuss the essential question of “When not to use technology?”. Dave has a nice post up on the topic so I will only mention a couple points.

The most difficult aspect of my job as an instructional technologist is when I need to work with teachers using technology that doesn’t support student learning and/or doesn’t teach the correct skills in using the various tools. Working as an instructional technologist means one must be a leader and a champion for student learning no matter how uncomfortable the situation might be. When teachers use and model technology ineffectively or have their students spend valuable time working on projects that don’t help their learning, they sadly can do a great deal of damage in that moment and in the future use of the technology.

What makes these situations so difficult is that the teachers are trying something new and often get excited about the creativity that goes with using technology. They are doing as we ask them in trying new ways to support learning by using technology. One needs to read these situations carefully to decide in some cases to simply remain silent but to be ready the next time the teacher wants to try something new. At other times the planned project might involve days of student technology work that could be used so much more effectively if the instructional technologist and/or library media specialist can get in and collaborate early in the planning process.

I think we often devalue the teaching of technology skills and the importance of using good design and communication principles. Teaching technology skills is no different than teaching reading, writing, math, art, etc. skills. However, with technology, users sometimes think just being about to put a project together is all there is to it.

A good example is that many teachers would say they know how to use PowerPoint and Paint so they can see themselves teaching it. And as instructional technologists, we want the technology to integrate and diffuse to the point that teachers model its use and teach it themselves. Yet, the dilemma arises when an untrained teacher doesn’t teach the needed basic design principles or worse, models poor design skills. The following, for example, are some basic skills that must be taught with everyday tools as PowerPoint and Paint:

• the value of using white space
• minimal use of but large enough and projector friendly fonts
• large single student created images
• when images used from the Web that they are cited
• no clip art
• no animation
• no sound effects
• simple, non-distracting backgrounds the same for each slide
• colors that are natural and compliment each other

How many adult presentations of PowerPoint have you seen that do the exact opposite of this list? Plenty. We cringe seeing the technology get in the way of the presenter’s lesson.

So are we ready to speak up when teachers go as far as to model the opposite of what we want our students to learn regarding design and communication skills? This is what teachers of technology sometimes face. In many cases they do so without the support of their administrators who don’t know know themselves the discreet skills that are needed for 21st century project creation and communication. Instructional technologists and library media specialists are peers with their fellow teachers thus making it even more difficult to offer ideas and propose instructional changes during the instruction. This is really the role of the administrator as instructional leader for the school to step forward and support the proper use of technology.

We can all read, write, do math, sing a song and paint something but in most cases, we know that it takes training and set of skills to teach these disciplines. I believe we are more comfortable in our schools stepping forward in speaking up to teachers making mistakes in teaching writing, reading, art, etc.  I think we value those skills much more than we do technology and information literacy skills and in many cases our teachers and administrators just don’t know how important those skills are for our 21st century learners.

This means that our leadership efforts must also include the ongoing teaching and promoting of the value of using proper technology, design and communication skills by teachers, administrators and students. Besides the usual efforts for technology integration through professional development and ongoing work with teachers and teams, we must celebrate successful uses of technology via our school Web site, our blogs, newsletters and any other available venue that models the proper use of technology.