Guiding Questions for Technology Use

I found this blog entry by Jeff Utecht to be interesting. It reminds me somewhat of nested objectives and the work we are doing with Classroom 10. He shares his thoughts about evaluating the use of technology in classrooms using the work of Prensky as a starting point.


I remembered a Marc Prensky article in Edutopia in which he talks about the typical process of technology adoption:
1. Dabbling with technology
2. Doing Old things in Old Ways
3. Doing Old things in New Ways
4. Doing New things in New Ways

He then takes Prensky's process and turns them into the following questions.

What if we turned these stages of technology adoption into questions that an evaluator could use during the evaluation process?
1. Is the technology being used “Just because it’s there”?
2. Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in Old ways?
3. Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in New ways? 4. Is the technology creating new and different learning experiences for the students?

I believe we can and should consider using them in our walkthroughs and observations to collect data on implementation practices and for program evaluation. It would be interesting to hear what Cheryl and her Meteri colleagues think about this model. We should also be sharing our answers to these questions with each other as a way to check for common understanding of practice and developing system knowledge.

They can also serve as guiding questions as we make decisions on how to use technology to support learning and teaching in our classrooms. They can help keep us focused on the learning and not on trying to fit the tools into lessons. I know there are also many other considerations such as those around literacy that will also provide more direction, but until we have that direction these questions can help. If we find that our use is focused in the "because it's there" or the "old things in Old ways" areas, it should force us to ask some reflective questions about our practice and goals.

In the blog, Utecht goes on to share his thinking around each of the questions and another Prensky quote that makes one think about change in our profession related to our own experience. Are we examining all the elements he identifies for change. No, should we?