Tech in the Classroom, Everything in Moderation

Throughout my EdTech Masters at Marian (fully online), I often reflect on the growing reliance on online learning . When I began this program, I envisioned an entire online curriculum, complete with web tools for every learning experience and style needed for my students, paired with me as a facilitator to differentiated learning.

Having just completed a three-week summer course in which my high school students had 1:1 chromebooks, I’m tempering my enthusiasm for 100% online learning. I swung the pendulum too far toward technology, away from face-to-face collaboration. Students became silent drones, the blue glow of a laptop screen dimming any chance of building discussion skills. As a teacher of speech and language, this was disconcerting.

I’ve seen a similar drawback in my Marian online cohort. I’ve had fruitful debates with colleagues at PD sessions throughout my career. We get to know each other in flesh and blood, allowing for a quicker, natural level of comfort that opens us up to lively debate. Sadly, I’ve never met any of my fellow Marian EdTech-ies, which I feel contributes to the high level of agreeable responses and minimal critical discussion. Perhaps the blended cohorts have an easier time critiquing each other, but the overwhelming amount of discussion replies begin with "I agree.." or "Me too!" This shows me that we are afraid to engage in critique with a stranger and search out opportunities for platitudes so we can reach our discussion grade quota.

As is typically the case in life and education, a balance of technology and traditional learning should be our goal. My middle schoolers will have 1:1 laptops this school year. I hope to create a learning atmosphere that prompts collaboration and learning with and without technology, so students are building social and 21^st century skills. 

Maximizing eBook Potential

For a middle or high school English class, reading novels on an electronic device utilizes the commenting, built-in dictionary, clickable background knowledge via web links, and multimedia components, all the great resources teachers have been using in one, mobile device. 

However, it would be wasteful if lessons were limited to traditional literature circles in which students read the same novel as a small group and allow discussion to guide the learning. Years of pedagogy supports this practice, but with the advent of mobile devices, these literature circles need to expand outside the 25-30 students of a classroom. 

Kids aren’t just holding books, they’re holding a communication device. FaceTime, Skype, instant messaging, email, and wikis are all ways discussions on text can break the classroom’s four walls. Opportunities for discussions with experts or students from relevant regions of the globe bring a range of insights a single community of learners can’t. 

Attached below is a lesson plan for traditional literature circles in which the only innovative component is utilizing eBooks and the various tools the book reading apps provide. It falls short of its potential by limiting the discussions to the students in the particular classroom. 

This lesson focuses on the skills of using an ebook. Yet, student background in technology literacy and device intuition is growing. While basic training in the tools of a school’s particular ebooks is necessary, just as it is necessary to teach the use of science lab equipment or a new software program, an entire series of lessons is overkill. Further, students often end up teaching the teacher a new trick and are more than ready to show off their knowledge to the fellow student who is a tad behind. This instructional time could be better spent discovering connections with world-wide circles. 


eBook Lesson Plans:

e-Book Reading and Response: Innovative Ways to Engage with Texts