Educational Technologies – Friend or Foe?

Dr. Daniel Andrews, The University of Melbourne.

We’re living in the era of technological advancement but are educational technologies actually enhancing student learning?

As more and more facets of our lives become increasingly dependent on technology, it is only logical that we would look to technology to improve the educational experiences that we offered to our students. But are we putting all our eggs in the right basket? Are educational technologies all they’re cracked up to be?

Educational technologies are digital technologies used to facilitate learning. This is a rather loose definition and for the purposes of this blog we’ll focus on internet platforms, website and mobile apps that can be used to facilitate a learning experience.

What types of educational technology exist?

While the use of educational technologies to deliver course materials online has been around for some time (think Canvas, Blackboard and Moodle), there are now many more educational technologies available that fill specific needs. Some facilitate information sharing, such as Padlet, Google Docs and Wiki’s. Some allow students to attempt questions or polls before receiving feedback, such as Poll everywhere, Socrative and Kahoot! While others are more focused on delivering information on a specific topic to the learning. And of course, where would we have been without technologies, such as Zoom, that have allowed us to bring the class room into students living and bedrooms right across the world.

Choosing which educational technologies to use

But with the flood of educational technologies that are now available to educators, how should we choose which to use? And how can we be sure that using educational technologies is assisting our students to meet the desired learning outcomes?

The dirty little secret about educational technologies is that they’re only as good as what you put into them.

As the educator, you still need to spend time designing an appropriate learning experience, grounded in the desired learning outcomes. The technology doesn’t do the work for you.

Let’s now think of an educational technology (with the output being learning) as an assembly line that makes a car. Only when the assembly line is built correctly and is fed the correct information, in the correct order, will it produce the end product correctly (the car). It is much the same for using educational technology. Without an educator having thought-out the purpose of the activity, before creating a learning sequence that is designed based on the desired educational outcomes and creating the required supporting resources, using an educational technology is unlikely to deliver the desired output.

Designing robust learning experiences

So instead of thinking about how you may want to use a new educational technology in your teaching, perhaps it is more useful to first spend some time thinking about designing robust learning experiences. Once this has been achieved, you’ll be in a great position to identify the right educational technology to help facilitate learning experiences to achieve the desired educational outcomes.

Much like with any technology, educational technology is only as good as good as what we put into it and how we choose to use it. So, how will you utilise educational technologies in your course?

 

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Want more on this topic?

Resources:

• What Educational technologies have you used?
  • 9 Ed. Technologies already on the Padlet
• 8 Questions to ask before trying a new Educational Technology in your course