“Technology is best when it brings people together”- Matt Mullenweg
Educational technology is everywhere. Kahoot and Quizlet. Blookit and Quizizz. 80,000 apps on the Apple App Store. There is Khan Academy and (the ever-present helper for DIY adults) YouTube videos. There are more activities than you can possibly imagine that haven’t been discovered and popularized too. Shiny. New. Things.
What have these shiny new things unlocked?
Do they help people, especially children, learn better?
You can make the argument that games reduce the drudgery of some things that need to be learned. For example, math facts, sight words, basic concepts can be made to be more “fun” and thus, learned more easily.
But there’s a downside- the “attention economy” as Cal Newport has written about, pulls kids in and doesn’t let go at times. One video leads to another and we aren’t learning as much as we are consuming. Apps get closed and games get opened. Creating gets reduced and consuming increases.
These considerations don’t even include the eventual login errors and repairs and functional issues that happen from operating devices. Things fall apart, apps don’t update, and gasp, sometimes the Wifi goes down.
When you consider the next shiny new thing, think about this…How will this improve learning?
Will this add to your practice as an educator?
How will this detract from what you do?
There are so many ways a computer can do things better- but interacting with children and developing minds is not one of them.
