I agree, but sometimes we do need to ask ourselves how we can use a technology in order to explore its possibilities. I wouldn’t know the possibilities of my ipad if I hadn’t tried to do things with it that weren’t necessarily required. In that process, I may have fallen on my face, but in turn discovered other greater uses that would have gone overlooked if I hadn’t looked at all.

And curiosity is the spark! And relationships are the… glue…

Hi Dave – I wrote this shortly after our district’s annual March Inservice Technology Fair. I don’t want to knock the fine folks who plan our PD; they’re trying to give the people what they want and do a very competent job organizing it. But after sitting through 20 minutes each on: Google Sketchup for Educators, Scratch for Educators, and, wait for it, Twitter for Educators, I am getting serious about a strict avoidance policy for these presentations. Scratch is super neato but the presenter suggested teachers use it to make animations for kids to watch – hunh? – I want to know how to get the kids juiced about doing the pseudo-programming. I have never tried a lesson where kids program something. I don’t have the first idea about how to integrate that. So I suppose what I would like to see, what would be helpful for me, is instead of 20 ways to use Pinterest in the Classroom, something like 5 Ways to Get Kids’ Hands On Coordinate Geometry Proofs. Show me a lesson that works better than what I’m doing without technology.

As I read Dan Meyer’s original post, my brain recalled TPACK. Then I happened to look at the right side of this page and noticed Matt Townsley made a Recent Comment (hi Matt!). Matt and I heard Punya Mishra, Ph.D, from MSU speak about TPACK and the implications that technology has in the classroom.

As I plan problem-based instruction tasks to share with audiences of classroom teachers, I always remember that Dr. Mishra made a statement parallel to what Dan Meyer is saying. In my words to summarize both educators, to use technology in a lesson is not about what you use, but about the pedagogy, content and technology that makes the lesson rich.

I think that a big problem is that a lot of money is being spent on new technologies without much input from teachers on whether or not they’ll use it. Our school has a brand new set of iPads which have basically sat in my classroom all year long because nobody is sure how to use them. There is certainly a lot of hype about the use of iPads in schools, which I’m sure is good for Apple’s sales, but I wonder how many other iPads are out there sitting in classrooms collecting dust.

Kate, thank you for the last sentence of your comment! There is pressure for us to use technology in the classroom, but the heart of the lesson is still the lesson (the mathematics!) itself. A lousy lesson only gets “louder” with technology, not unlike speaking louder to an English learner hoping she’d get it.

David, the iPad begs to be explored though. It comes loaded with goodies to play with. But to teach USING an iPad, that lesson must still come from you and your creativity.

Nathan, we have teachers who have asked to have their interactive whiteboards REMOVED from their rooms because they didn’t know how or care to use them.

Are we trying too hard to incorporate technology into our lessons instead of letting the lesson begs for the technology?

As someone who asked for an IWB to be removed from my room, they are absolutely horrible. They encourage worst practices (staying close to the board instead of moving around the room, turning your back to the students, running through a presentation too quickly, not engaging students or only engaging a small number at a time). I use technology constantly, and I have yet to see IWBs used for anything that I would consider positive. The ones we got were almost $3,000 each, and a $200 wireless tablet (Wacom Bamboo is a good example) gives you all the capabilites and more (multi-touch) without all of the downsides.

I’m sorry to have upset a couple of people whom I respect. :(

Perhaps it’s different in the US (I’m not being patronising here, just observing), but here in Australia ALL teachers (and therefore my student preservice teachers) are expected to actively help their school students to develop digital literacy, along with language literacy and numeracy.

In our 4-year preservice courses for primary (elementary) and secondary teachers, there are multiple required subjects (I would estimate over 50%) in which students are asked to integrate ICTs (tech) in their planning and teaching practices, as core parts of their assessment. So even if I didn’t agree, I am required to teach this.

Am I an “evangelist” for technology in the classroom? Absolutely, just as I am an evangelist for excellent use of questioning, “hands-on, minds-on” learning, problem solving, “real world” applications for what students learn (in math and in all other subjects); and use of the old-tech OHP, whiteboard, chalkboard, paper and pencils, butchers paper and crayons, physical manipulatives, etc., etc. My students know my passion for great teaching, and not being satisfied with mediocre, in any area of education.

These are all tools, not panaceas, and each has its advantages and disadvantages. But I won’t be asking for useful resources to be removed from my classroom, even if I can’t right now think of a good way to use them.

This weekend (and for another couple of weeks at least) I am writing specs for brand-new apps to help teachers to support their students in mathematical thinking and really learn mathematics, to be marketed through the Math Widgets website and brand. Will these IWB apps supplant textbooks? Of course not. Will they replace the need for an excellent teacher and a hundred other teaching tools? Give me a break. But I believe that these tools will add extra functionalities, not possible or feasible in an analogue form, that teachers will be able to find value in.

To repeat: my apologies for any offence I’ve caused. But I won’t apologise for looking for new ways to reach my students and to engage them in every possible way with thinking deeply about what they are learning, for the future benefit of both the students, wider society and their communities.