As we begin a new school year Ontario, I am grateful for the opportunities I have had over the summer to read blogs, engage with other educators on Twitter and Voxer, as well as re-connect with so many friends and family members. I also learned about a whole new slew of tech tools!
The beginning of the new school year is very much like New Year’s Day. We look forward to a fresh start and make resolutions. I often hear teachers speak about the new tools they are going to try in the class this year. But I am also so keenly aware of the fact that for every tool I learn about or try, there are three others that do a similar thing. I often feel overwhelmed because I feel like in my role, I need to know the best and greatest tool.
Here is just an example of an exchange that happened on Twitter a short while ago around interactive quiz tools.
We all say, it’s not about the tool, but we get so caught up with them sometimes don’t we? The best solution of course is to focus on the learning goal and select the tool that most effectively gets the job done–even if that tool is a pen or pencil. In this case, though, all of the tools mentioned would help students create something to interact with a text, which is the learning goal.
So then, can actual let the selection of the tool become part of the learning? As Dina Moati suggests, it brings in student choice and voice, but I would add that it also allows for critical thinking. If there are a few tools that do achieve the same goal, why not have the students do the following?
- have students compare two to three tools and determine which one they would like to use;
- have students justify their responses and choose what they think is the best tool;
- reflect on their choices at the end to determine if they made the right decision;
- review the tool in the app store.
The assessment would look exactly the same as it would be based on the curriculum goals, not the tool used. What do you think?
“We all say, it’s not about the tool, but we get so caught up with them sometimes don’t we? ”
It is, but we become so enamoured by tools that we spend so much time learning the technology, and not enough powerful learning with technology. For example, there are three versions of the same basic technology being shared (Kahoot, Quizlet, Quiziz), but are any of them really going to create powerful learning opportunities, or are they the same thing we could have done with a ping pong paddle in the classroom? I am not against these little fun activities, but from the instances that I have seen, Kahoot isn’t transformational to the class, but just makes the same version of what we had, digital.
There are so many tools that are out there made by companies to recreate the old version of school, but it is really our thinking and reshaping of what is possible that is important. More tools to provide different opportunities for voice are important, but have the learning opportunities really changed? Have we created the “hand-in/hand-out” factory model of education, in a digital sense? A worksheet is a worksheet, whether it is on paper, or some cool tool. Once the novelty wears off, are we left with the same thing?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I like this comment:
“The best solution of course is to focus on the learning goal and select the tool that most effectively gets the job done–even if that tool is a pen or pencil.”
Are the learning goals changing, or should they?
Hey George,
I appreciate you taking the time to comment. I definitely agree with the fact that many of these tools can become a distraction from real learning and that they can merely provide a substitution for the same old pedagogy. When I look at my post again, I realize that perhaps I need to contextualize my thinking a little more. As a Literacy Consultant, I constantly look for ways for students to interact with text. Students need to be shown explicitly how to do this and then they need to practice. What typically happens is that the teacher assigns a text to read, provides students with a quiz or questions, students respond, and then forget about it completely because they haven’t really become engaged in that text at all. So in 100% of the cases where teachers are creating the quizzes no matter how “fun” the tool, you are right it is not transformational and for many students no more interesting or relevant either. But, if students are creating a quiz themselves based on their own understanding of a text (preferably one they’ve had a say in selecting), and sharing their quizzes with their peers, then the likelihood of them understanding the text increases exponentially. Not only that, but students need to learn how to ask better questions which a quiz tool might help them to do.
I should also have qualified that the best fit for the kind of activity I describe would most likely be the student, who in a traditional classroom is not challenged because oftentimes we teach to the middle. And so for those students, who naturally interact with text already and don’t need the extra support, learning about several tools, having the autonomy to choose to learn about one, use it, and then reflect provides an opportunity for a real-life extension and for critical thinking.
Is this the shift we need in education? Perhaps not. But a shift in the right direction, nonetheless?
I love your question, “Have learning opportunities really changed?” as well as your final question. I think these are questions we all need to ponder as we continue to be inundated with tech tools (myself included).
Thank you pushing my thinking here. Stop by any time!