Five Ways to Integrate Technology into the Classroom

Here is a guest post from Joe Taylor, Jr., an author, training advisor, and business manager for a Fortune 500 technology company.

Few debates rile up parents and politicians as much as how to improve education. Just as technology has overhauled how we do business around the world, rapid changes to educational tools have stoked discussion over how to bring new devices and ideas into the classroom. Some educators even wonder whether these five forms of educational technology negate the need to bring kids into a classroom at all:

1. Content creation

Educational technology levels the playing field for both students and teachers. Giving all participants access to the same tools enables teachers to activate a variety of learning and communication styles. Instead of assigning a term paper, some teachers request projects that include polished videos, podcast audio recordings or even published websites.

According to an annual PBS survey, teachers recognize that digital content assignments help reach students with varying learning styles. Entrepreneur and homeschooling parent Penelope Trunk suggests using online tools to publish students' projects to audiences far beyond a single teacher or class. On her blog, Trunk writes that publishing prepares students for the kind of communication they'll use daily in their careers.

2. Curriculum development

image courtesy of hamiltonrentals.wordpress.com

Bringing technology into the classroom doesn't just mean issuing laptops or tablets to students. From swapping best practices with colleagues on Twitter to participating in a virtual symposium with teachers located around the world, teachers can connect their students to the most current best practices for classroom education.

Instead of relying on outdated textbooks, teachers can publish their own instruction materials directly to e-book readers or tablet devices. Teachers with strong presentation skills have already popped up on YouTube and elsewhere online, where even more students can benefit from their passion.

3. Video games

Unlike lectures and other traditional learning formats, educational video games scale. They engage students one-to-one, rewarding results and enabling advanced achievement. Some of the most compelling education video games connect students, teachers and other game players from around the world.

Students also use games to build their own virtual universes. Alice, a 3D environment from Carnegie Mellon University, teaches the significant skills found in computer programming classes as students use the tool for storytelling and project creation. Alex Peake's "Code Hero" project requires participants to build new layers of the game as they play it.

4. Social media

Tweets, text messages and Facebook updates permeate the lives of most students. Yet, out of fear that students will bully or distract each other during class, many schools ban social media and personal technology from the classroom. Students crave connection so deeply that a New York entrepreneur has equipped vans as secure technology lockers. Parked outside busy schools, kids can stow their digital gear inside there for quick pickup after the last bell rings.

Instead, some educators suggest embracing social media in the classroom. According to teacher Mike Ribble, schools offer an ideal environment for what he calls "digital citizenship." Ribble and other social media advocates encourage teachers to grow students' communications and security skills -- traits that American Management Association members call essential to tomorrow's careers.

5. Remote learning

Projects like Khan Academy aim to reach students who don't always have access to compelling classroom experiences. The website includes hundreds of instructional lectures for free, designed for discussion with teachers, parents and coaches. Studies indicate that exposure to even basic micro-lessons posted to YouTube can help students advance math and scientific skills.

Online colleges offer more examples of remote learning environments, enabling students to blend a combination of real-time and asynchronous learning experiences into degree programs that reach the same results as campus-based courses of study. Charter schools have promoted remote learning tools as a way to keep slow learners or bullies from hindering the success of more advanced students.

Debate over this, and other types of technology, will keep raging, especially since the tools evolve and change faster than the current education system can measure results. In the meantime, parents and community leaders will keep relying on their own passion to help innovate the learning experience.

Joe Taylor Jr. has covered finance and business markets for over two decades. His work has been featured on NPR, CNBC, Financial Times Television, Fox Business, and ABC News. Previously, Joe worked as a marketing and customer service training advisor for three of the country's leading consumer lenders. He recently completed a personal finance book entitled The Rogue Guide to Credit Cards; (Rogue Guide Books, 2012). When not writing, Joe serves as a business sales manager for a Fortune 500 technology company.

Potential and Pitfalls of Students with Tech

We can't help it--our students all have access to technology that we never even dreamed of. As schools as classes move toward embracing students with iPads and other gadgets, a reflective individual known as Jessica S. emailed me with her thoughts. 

I hope you enjoy this guest post!  

Everywhere you turn technology appears to have firmly entrenched itself in most of our everyday conveniences. While some of these technological advantages are seemingly benign and geared to help us streamline tedious or time-consuming tasks, technology also manages to create situations that can be potentially detrimental or hazardous. To what extent is largely determined by the user who is typically able to gauge these risks and make educated decisions regarding his or her use of them. However, for young kids making these decisions it is not as easy for them to determine how much is too much of a good thing.

Parents Guidance: A Double-Edged Sword

Determining what technologies are appropriate for young children is obviously a task designated for parents and guardians but there is a problematic reality present in these guiding decisions. Children and young adults are typically better versed in new technology than the parents and adults in their life.

Unlike older adults or even adults from just the next generation, children are often born into technology, exposed from a very early age to some of the most technologically advanced gadgets available on the market. Unfortunately kids are not going on the internet to compare car insurance rates or researching additional disability insurance protection, they are going on to the internet to connect to the outside world. The internet now provides an important facet of socialization and context for the world around them.

How then can parents begin to conceive of what technologies are appropriate when they themselves may have a very basic or inadequate understanding of them? Parents and guardians can begin by asking themselves these basic questions:

1. How comfortable or knowledgeable am I in monitoring what my kids look at or have access to online?
2. Do I have the ability or know-how to restrict my children’s phone calls or text messages?
3. Do I know enough about laptops, computers, smart phones, or other gadgets to determine my children’s appropriate use of them?

If the answer to these questions is “no” parents and guardians have a difficult decision to make.

The Real Risk to Children

So what kind of risks are children really facing in today’s technologically savvy world? Most of the time we think the risks are from sexually inappropriate materials but the truth is the real risk to children is far greater and may come from a source much closer to home.

Children at Risk in Multiple Ways

• Cyberbullying via chat rooms, texting, and social networking sites
• Viruses and malware designed to extract sensitive information from your computer
• Exploitation or manipulation by “friends,” adults, or strangers
• Financial exploitation or theft if they have access to finances
• Exposure to pornography, violence, and inappropriate materials
• Exploitation by radical “social groups,” cults, or trendy fads
• Access to incorrect and potentially harmful information especially in regards to anorexia, bulimia, and self-mutilation  

Allowing Access to today’s Technology

Fortunately, parents and guardians do not have to despair. Many resources, programs, and educational material exist for those looking to make sure their kids can access today’s technology safely and in an appropriate way.

Resources include

• Kid’s Health.org offers a guide to “internet safety”
• Common Sense Media.com hosts an excellent database of informational videos and articles on being cyber smart
• Safe Kids.com offers “A Parent’s Guide to Facebook”

These resources are just a few of the online guides and services available to parents and guardians. But the really effective response may stem from sources closer to home.

For questions or more information feel free to contact

• Your children’s school – ask about what kind of safeguards are in place for children using computers and internet
• The local police department can often provide tips and tools for parents looking to safeguard their children
• Your internet provider, cell phone company, and cable company usually provide special parental controls to help parents monitor and restrict activity

Another less obvious resource but no less important are other parents and guardians. Getting together with the parents of your children’s friends is a great way to share strategies in addition to establishing expectations. Often children will go to other houses to gain access to inappropriate material.

Make sure all parents are on the same page and there is a game plan in place should a parent discover either child is gaining access to unwanted media or engaging in inappropriate behaviors.

The real question of whether young kids should have access to today’s technology is a complex one. With technology making its way into schools, gaming arenas, and in the home, shielding kids from all technology is becoming more and more difficult. The true answer is every parent and guardian must make the personal decision of how much is too much of a good thing.

Students Learn Social Studies "On Location" with Technology in the Classroom

While most of us have never been to Egypt, students in Dan Jones’ social studies class have come close. Taking full advantage of available green-screen technology, Mr. Jones transports his students to the places they study.

Jones, who is in his seventh year of teaching, said every teacher can find creative ways to use technology in class. He said he picked up most of his strategies by experimenting with a variety of online tools.

"Our students' world is made up of Facebook, YouTube, texting and more," he said. "We, as educators, need to bring these things into our classroom and figure out how to use them for an educational purpose . . . I have students creating websites, portfolios and video book reports.” Jones’ goal is for kids to leave his class with a portfolio of work they’re really proud of.

Do you agree with Jones? Do educators need to bring technology into the classroom?

Read more about Dan Jones and how he has used technology in the classroom here.

Digital Library Aids Students Learning in a Digital Age

What if we encouraged students to learn in the same ways and with the same tools they spend their time away from school, their “free” time?

Not only that, what if we provided them the means to learn in that same way?
In Chicago, the city’s main library is giving it a go. With a 5,500-square-foot space, Chicago teens are utilizing resources in the “YOUmedia” section of the library to experience learning on “their terms.” While no one knows if this new media space will help the students directly in their classrooms, it is likely to provide a greater interest in learning altogether and knowledge of how to use modern day technology to pursue interests they may want to pursue in the future as a career.

"We are in one of these rare moments in time where what it means to be literate today, what it meant for us, is going to be different from what it means to be literate for our kids," says DePaul University's Nichole Pinkard, who first envisioned the space. Just as schools have always pushed teens to read critically and pick apart authors' arguments, she says, educators must now teach kids how to consume media critically and, ideally, to produce it.

To learn more, click here.