Classroom Management with technology
So, I suppose you could interpret that title a few different ways. Certainly there are ways to use technology to ameliorate classroom management struggles -- ClassDojo is a great example, as are monitoring programs like Faronics. But let's look at it from a different angle. When you introduce technology into a classroom, what impact does it have on classroom management issues?
Certainly in 2013, I would hope that most classrooms in Indiana began introducing technology to modify instruction at least a decade ago. But using a SmartBoard or computers on carts is different than facing a room full of students, each with a personal device that they are expected to use meaningfully for their learning. So, what challenges are there? Well, the same as always mostly. Teachers will still face distracted and disruptive students, ones who use whatever means possible to cheat, and catching up late and absent students, and taking attendance without losing instruction time, and, and, and…
Students are students are students. Sort of…this digital age has changed the wiring of kids brains. And their expectations for what a teacher can offer them. Or at least is should. Digital natives are growing up in a world where they can have every fact imaginable at their fingertips in seconds. They haven't ever gotten a users guide or manual when handed a device. And teaching is teaching is teaching…unless it stuck in a mindset that holds the conveyance of knowledge as the primary task.
I think the key for classroom management with or without technology is student engagement. And student engagement requires a student-centered approach to learning. Sitting and listening to a lecture, filling out worksheets, making posters, writing disjointed essays, completing a series of problems out of a book…these things do not engage students. Seeing how their learning connects them to the world does. So, with a device or without, the key to classroom management is using instructional strategies that work. And I am not along in this opinion! http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2012/01/reflecting-on-two-years-of-11-guest-post.html?wpmp_tp=1
Certainly in 2013, I would hope that most classrooms in Indiana began introducing technology to modify instruction at least a decade ago. But using a SmartBoard or computers on carts is different than facing a room full of students, each with a personal device that they are expected to use meaningfully for their learning. So, what challenges are there? Well, the same as always mostly. Teachers will still face distracted and disruptive students, ones who use whatever means possible to cheat, and catching up late and absent students, and taking attendance without losing instruction time, and, and, and…
Students are students are students. Sort of…this digital age has changed the wiring of kids brains. And their expectations for what a teacher can offer them. Or at least is should. Digital natives are growing up in a world where they can have every fact imaginable at their fingertips in seconds. They haven't ever gotten a users guide or manual when handed a device. And teaching is teaching is teaching…unless it stuck in a mindset that holds the conveyance of knowledge as the primary task.
I think the key for classroom management with or without technology is student engagement. And student engagement requires a student-centered approach to learning. Sitting and listening to a lecture, filling out worksheets, making posters, writing disjointed essays, completing a series of problems out of a book…these things do not engage students. Seeing how their learning connects them to the world does. So, with a device or without, the key to classroom management is using instructional strategies that work. And I am not along in this opinion! http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2012/01/reflecting-on-two-years-of-11-guest-post.html?wpmp_tp=1