Forums

My name is Toni Bohlen and I am a preservice teacher out of Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. As I am approaching graduation, I have had many thoughts about the use of technology in the classroom. Personally, technology is not my favorite tool to use, especially when it comes to routine assignments. However, I would like to hear different perspectives of how technology is being used in the classroom, so I am not basing my instructional strategies off my own bias. 

How are you balancing the use of technology, while still keeping student engagement? Are there specific subjects you would say you prefer to use technology more? 

Hi Toni. Congratulations on your upcoming graduation! 

Technology has become a definition with many meanings in education. When many of us hear the word 'technology' we think of computers, cell-phones, anything that is plugged in. We can be users of this type of technology and we have to weigh its benefits in learning. Some programs on computers provide virtual access to simulations where we can add data, then watch the program play out how the data impacts a phenomenon. For example, by sliding a temperature bar to increase, we can view molecular action increasing with heat. This phenomenon is abstract and computer simulations are helpful in illustrating this phenomenon. It works best with older students and from your question, it seems that. you are viewing technology as a tool to complete asssignments.

Another definition of technology is anything designed by a human to serve a human's need or want. Humans (and some animals) design and engineer technologies. These technologies can be as complex as engines to power rockets, and as simple as a paper clip to hold papers together. When children build with unit blocks, they are designing and engineering their need or want of a structure. The structure is the technology. 

If you plan to teach or support teachers of PK-2 children, viewing children's designs of technologies to move marbles on a pathway, block structures to serve as sturdy supports, fulcrums to serve as a kinetic component to a system...you have integrative STEM at its finest (not a silo for math, a silo for science, a silo for engineering, and a silo for technology), where it makes sense to young learners, and how it develops dispositions of persistence, systems thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and optimism. This approach to technology builds children's agency and capitalizes on children's interest in what is in the world, how does it work, and what can I make happen as I figure out how it works. Children engage in technology unplugged through their playful learning until we snuff it out in formal schooling. But you can prevent that from happening!