"Date the tool, Marry the capability."
When talking to other teachers and friends about technology integration in the classroom, the number one question always is, “If a school is going 1-1, what is the best device they can use?” I do not know if this is a cop-out, but my answer is always, “Any device!”
When I attended the 2012 Google Education Summit in Milwaukee as a tech amateur, Molly Schroeder gave the keynote address on day one and blew me away. The number one thing I took from her magnificent melange of tech genius was, “Date the tool; Marry the capability.”
Our school is currently BYOD, heading to 1-1 iPads and has chosen to relax our cell phone policy. I was part of the technology integration meetings and discussions for the future course but had no clue what I was in store for. I was surrounded by devices, unanswerable questions, debate, and frustration. We looked at the pros and cons of Lenovo Tablets, Chromebooks, iPads, Kindle Fires and Windows tablets. It was exhausting, to say the least. The number one learned lesson was that it really did not matter. I realized, as I researched every and any device known to man, that no matter what device we chose, there would be negatives and there would be unhappy people. The device itself does not change anything, though, it is the capability of the device that does.
iPads, Chromebooks, and laptops are all going to become outdated, have restrictions, have costs and be disliked by some. But, what they do for education is what is exciting. We ended up choosing iPads because of the simplicity of the usage of the device, the small/compact options, iTextbooks being only $14.99 (extremely interactive and cool) and they can do anything and everything that a laptop and other tablets can do. Sure, it does not have a keyboard fixed to it, but it also allows a teacher to monitor what kids are doing on it because it lays flat on a desk; and, how much typing is a student really doing in class every day?
The biggest challenge for me was, how can I become a technology friendly teacher while waiting four years until my seniors all have a specific device? I, again, reflected on my need to focus on capability. Being BYOD has massive drawbacks. The biggest being the fact that not every student has a device or will choose to bring a device to class every day. That being said, what was I set out to accomplish?
This year, I took the challenge. We became a Google Apps for Education School this year which allowed me to tap into the genius behind Google Drive, Folders, Sites, Presentations, Apps, Docs, Research and Youtube (Yes, I drank the Google Kool-Aid and now I am addicted to the stuff). I teach a contemporary history class, and for the last 3 years, did so from a 2004 textbook (CRAZY, RIGHT??). This year, thanks to Drive and the creation of class folders due to the awesome script called Gclassfolders, my class is now textbook-less and of my 96 students, only one said they missed having a textbook.
I no longer copy lengthy articles every morning to hand out to my students who end up “forgetting” them everywhere they go. Instead, I drop them in their folder which they can access from any computer, tablet or smartphone, giving them virtually no excuse for not doing their homework. I can also assign videos with articles and give them access to all of my teaching materials. It has been a phenomenal shift in how we run the class. Currently, because my department is amazing and on board with all of my “crazy ideas”, we are building a website for the future so that we do not even have to mess with dropping things in their folders, but rather, have one centralized public location for students and parents to find homework, calendars with all tests and makeup assignments, and open discussion boards. I am so excited for the possibilities.
So, why did I vote for an iPad when I am such a Google enthusiast? Because the device does not matter, what matters is that I get to sync my iPhone and iPad with my Drive app and have full access to extend the classroom to my students 24-7. My goal is to get students to always feel like they can access me and my class content. I want them to complete live discussion boards, blog their opinions on world issues and collaborate on study guides. That is the excitement 1-1 classrooms bring. They allow us to create multi-dimensional learning and really allow us to speak the language students today are used to speaking.
As I close out my posting for today, I want to leave you with a reflective question:
“How will technology impact your class?”
Maybe it will be a substitute for things you already do. You can do online homework hand-in, use it as a translator, a dictionary, or for typing papers. Maybe it will allow you to create new platforms to broadcast student projects through websites, coding, videos or podcasting.
Just remember that technology is not trying to change you as a teacher; it is trying to change the way students are educated.
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