Keeping the focus on learning, not the technology

The title of today's post come's from the blog Adventures in online teaching and the post It's about the learning, not the technology. I couldn't agree more. The post raises many questions about how we navigate our way through a veritable sea of technology, how we choose the right tools and how we keep the focus on the learning. Check out the excerpt below, and ensure you look at the full post.

With each potential tool, I have to ask myself, “what are the logistics?” How much time do I have to set aside for this new whiz-bang tool? Because I don’t have 25 students. I’m a secondary teacher, and we often have 150 or even 200 students. And each new tool has a learning curve – whoever thinks all kids know how to use technology without assistance has never spent time in a school computer lab. It’s not obvious to all of them.

When I first really got into using online discussion, I tried out a blog, where I posted a question, and students discussed it via comments. We all enjoyed it and the benefits of the discussion were immediately clear. But the logistics just about killed me. That’s why I decided to use Moodle, because it reduces the logistics – never eliminates them, but makes them manageable.

Last week I had an EDtalk published that in a sense dealt with the same issue, in this talk I (attempt) to explain how I am leading our school through a Teaching as Inquiry project to create an eLearning action plan - the aim being that teachers keep their focus on the student and their learning needs and outcomes and not just focusing on the ICT tools! It can be a tricky process, because sometimes you do need to play and experiement with the tools to discover their value. What comes first - the chicken or the egg? The tool or the learning?