Dave Youl

I had an interesting meeting yesterday with our IT Task Force here at work. The Task Force is a newly formed body of interested parties from different parts of the school with a view to making best use of technology within the school.

The meeting caused me to ponder again on the chicken and egg theory – i.e. what comes first? Do we investigate technology to implement and then apply to an educational framework, or, do we look at how we can best engage our learners using technology, and then implement the technology to suit?

The more I think about this, the more passionate and enthusiastic I become about the latter. Students have always, and will always learn. With or without technology. The challenge has got to be how to engage our students more completely with the given learning material.

Given that students are now using so many of these so called Web 2.0 technologies (a term that for some reason I’ve got an inherent dislike of) in their personal space, as an educator I’m interested in how we can use these technologies to engage our students into the subject matter of various subjects. As a result, we really need to focus on the educational outcomes first, and then apply the technology to achieve those outcomes. I think if we fall into the trap of implementing technology for its own sake before considering the educational applications, then we risk being the custodians of technological white elephants that have no educational benefit.

Of course, the way forward is far more complex. It involves many hours of experimentation, staff training, and probably many mistakes along the way as we discover what is effectively going to engage learning, and what serves as a mere distraction.

Its an exciting journey – who knows where it will end…