How do you utilize technology?

Many of the discussions I have with parents and educators, both here in Korea and around the world, center around controlling student use of technology. I enjoy these conversations and steering them away from being focused on control and towards an emphasis on utilization.

So how do you utilize technology with Middle School students? Our Tech Coordinator, Mr Frank Peterson summarizes it eloquently - communication, collaboration, and sharing.

These 3 components of tech utilization are not mutually exclusive, but rather they are part of an ever revolving circle. It is difficult to communicate without sharing - whether I am communicating ideas, opinions, or even just information. It is impossible to effectively collaborate without communicating, or without being willing to share. It is also true that when we share we communicate - even something as simple as sharing a cookie communicates a great deal.

Do you need technology to be able to communicate, collaborate, and share? The simple answer is no. The more complex answer is no, but............ With the utilization of technology our students now have the opportunity to communicate, collaborate, and share with other students in their classroom, with the teacher, with students in other classes, in other schools, even in other countries. Students are encouraged to utilize the available technology to collaboratively solve problems, to collaboratively create presentations, and to share their ideas, thoughts, knowledge, and understanding in new and exciting ways that are helping education to become more personal. Learning becomes more real and more important when students know that their intended audience is wider than the teacher and their peers in the same room. Have you ever witnessed how many times a student will independently revise a podcast if they know it will become available through iTunes?

Teaching and learning can certainly occur, as it has always done, without the use of laptops and the internet in classrooms. However, if we neglect to utilize these available technologies then we take from our students the opportunity to develop the important 21st skills of communication, collaboration, and sharing.