I'm winding down a five-week-long class which focused on technology in education, and the amount of content was staggering. There are so many exciting tools available for use in the classroom that it's hard for me wrap my head around all of them. To help keep track of everything we've covered, I think I'm going to go back to Day One and create a spreadsheet listing every single website, apps and social media outlet we explored -- I anticipate my spreadsheet will be several pages long.
Aside from the plethora of interesting technology tools, the most valuable take-away from my class was the big-picture perspective I gained for using technology in the classroom. Simply adding a long list of interesting apps or websites to a students' daily task list might look impressive on the surface, but it isn't necessarily going to make a difference in the long-run. The best use of technology in the classroom is strategic. As tempted as I am to immediately show my students every cool app I've learned about in this class, I'm going to slowly select and introduce elements that can be incorporated into out existing plans in a way that makes sense. Over time I'll add more and more technology from our giant list of options, but I'm going to be careful to do this in a way so that our overall approach evolves to utilize technology in the most effective way possible. By the end of this school year I anticipate our classroom and our daily tasks will look very different from where we began the year due to our use of additional technology (I am SO excited about this!), but we're going to take our time getting to this point to make sure, as they say, we're getting the most bang for our buck.
Illustration credit: Peter Arkle, Nov. 27, 2017 New York Times
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