Choosing Appropriate Technology: The Right Tool For the Job

 This post is a formative answer to the question:  How do you help and guide educators in choosing the appropriate technology to maximize learning and teaching? 

There are two situations in which I recommend tools to coworkers: 

1) a coworker comes to me asking for a specific kind of app for an assignment

2) I come across something I think will work in a colleague's unit

In both instances I try to choose tools that:

• are easy for students to use since these are elementary students
• extend thinking
• allow students to creatively show their learning

My flaw is that I mostly go by instinct over a rubric, checklist, or guidelines I can follow. 

This is making me think of a quote I recently heard in a TED talk by Helder Guimarães where he said, "We stop thinking too soon."

Perhaps before I make another recommendation, I should take a breath, ask another question, and listen, taking another moment to allow my colleague to speak, or finish their thoughts.

Follow-up: The other day a colleague came into my classroom asking about a tool to use for something. I went to my computer to do a search, and she went to her phone to do a search and came up with a solution before I could. Sometimes it helps to feel like you are being helped.

The 4 C's - This Week's Unit (That Was Two Weeks Ago)

• What are the digital age skills and how do they enhance the learning experience?

• How do you coach educators to integrate these digital age skills seamlessly into learning activities?

This week's learning module from the Coaching Digital Learning MOOC is about the 4 C's. (This was two weeks ago, but I got behind.)

1. Critical Thinking
2. Collaboration
3. Creativity
4. Communication

These skills are referred to as "21st Century Skills" and are associated with technology, but aren't they skills you would want to allow your students to experience even if you weren't using technology?


This week's first discussion question was to choose one of the 4 C's that we thought was the most important and answer the question:

What benefits for student learning do you see in integrating this digital age skill [collaboration] at your school? 

I think all four are important skills, and there are probably more like time management, self motivation, etc, but I chose collaboration simply because I feel that technology has had the biggest impact on the skill. 

The biggest question I had was: How can I plan for these skills and when in the planning process should I do it?

I suppose it is the same as planning for the ATLs.