The cost of attendance has been more than justified by the learning, technology exposure, and networking opportunities.

I’ve been attending the Campus Technology 2010 Conference in Boston for the last few days, and I learned a good deal in most of the Conference Sessions that I’ve attended. I heard some folks gripe a bit about some of the sessions they attended, but I was generally quite pleased with the ones I sat in on (although, I will admit that a few presenters could have benefitted from some work on their presentation skills).

I also learned a lot at some of the vendor booths, and appreciated some of the “Technology Classrooms” that were offered (25 minute vendor presentations that provided insight into their solutions). Add to that an outstanding Keynote Presentation by Harvard Business School CIO Steven Laster, and you have an experience that was worth repeating (I intend to return next year).

Here are some highlights from my experience.

“Teaching with Web 2.0: Case Study and Analysis“ by Mihaela Vorvoreanu, Assistant Professor, Purdue University

Professor Mihaela Vorvoreanu presented a wonderful case study in which she and colleague Dr. David Sears compared outcomes in a Public Relations course which had several Web 2.0 tools and activities purposefully woven into the instructional process, versus a ‘control’ Communication Theory course which had minimal use of such tools. The Web 2.0 technologies integrated into the PR course were Twitter, Skype, and Blogs. The outcomes assessed were: Motivation, Learning, Teacher Relationship, and impact on Career Success (as measured several years after the course).

The analysis shows clear correlations between the use of the tools and positive outcomes in the measured areas. This study has not yet been formally published, and I don’t wish to do any disservice to Ms. V and her colleague, so I won’t share any more about it at this time.

“Forecast for Malibu: Cloudy with a Chance of Virtual Computing”, presented by IT Directors Gerald Flynn and Thomas Hoover of Pepperdine University

These gentlemen shared an informative presentation that reviewed three different virtualization efforts they have helped to implement, with varying levels of success. All of these solutions offered great cost savings opportunties, coupled with enhanced functionality for the user community.

Their most successful virtualization project involved the use of virtualized hardware solutions from NComputing. These solutions can be used to provide multiple user stations from one computer, utilizing one of their relatively inexpensive devices, plus monitors, keyboards, and mice. I’ve been hearing a lot about these types of systems lately, and will likely look further into them, and do a feature post on it in the coming months.

The next technology they tried was virtual storage from Xythos. While this was easy to implement and administer, adoption was lower than expected (they think they need to work more at spreading the word, and helping users get up and running with the solution), so they have not yet realized the returns they hoped for.

Finally, they tackled virtualized applications using Citrix’s Xenapp technology. This ended up being a good deal more complex to implement and administer than originally envisioned, but they are still moving ahead, and intend to move towards full virtual desktops in the future.

“Virtual Support Center for Geographically Dispersed Faculty and Students”, by JoAnn Gonzalez-Major, Senior Instructional Designer, University of Anchorage (her colleague Amanda Albright, who is a partner in the work discussed, was unable to attend)

Ms. Gonzalez-Major and her colleague have done an impressive job of putting together an array of services and training opportunities to support the 1200+ geographically dispersed faculty who in turn support the 20,000+ students spread across the University of Anchorage’s multiple campuses.

One of the training and support solutions that really struck home was the web based tutorials and FAQs that they have developed and deliver via Moodle. Faculty and Students have a robust set of tutorials at their disposal, and can (and do!) use the FAQ system to self-help themselves to answers to many questions. When they can’t find answers there, they access Tier 1 support, and if they can’t help, the request is passed onto Tier 2 – any support issues that make it that far result in the development of a new FAQ!

JoAnn explained that while this may seem like a time consuming process, the time saved by enabling the community to self-help themselves clearly outweighs the effort that goes into documenting these solutions. The time saved can then go into further proactive training and self help solutions generation.

I intend to write feature posts about one or more of these sessions, so there’s more to follow. I’ll start by reviewing the excellent Keynote Presentation that HBS CIO Steven Laster conducted on Wednesday morning, “The Road Ahead: Driving Innovation in the ‘New Normal’“. A key take-away from this presentation was Mr. Laster’s “8 Factors For Success”. These ideas are fundamental concepts that can help ensure the long term success of IT Management in any institution, and I look forward to sharing them here (with sincere gratitude to Mr. Laster for granting his permission to do so).

In the meanwhile, if you’ve already attended a Campus Technology Conference, perhaps you are already sold on the value. If you haven’t, you would do well to budget some some funds and set aside the time to attend next year’s session (which will also be held in Boston, in July).

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Let’s stop misspending education technology dollars
This year’s major U.S. Education Technology Conferences
5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies

Gathering empirical evidence supporting the positive results that education technologies can help to deliver.

I’ve decided to try putting together an online collection of reports and studies that examine the use of education and instructional technologies, and how effectively they have been used to improve learning outcomes. I’ve had this thought from time to time, and last week I came across a couple articles that reminded me of the idea, and I’m ready to get started.

First I looked more closely at the reports I saw mention of last week – these are the first two studies cited below. I then searched out others, and while I found a good number of them, most were older than I desired. With the constant evolution of technology in mind, I wanted to stick with studies that were published in the last 5 years, as anything older is inevitably looking at technologies as they existed in years prior, making it somewhat out of date, considering the pace of technological change.

With the growing availablity of high speed bandwidth, the advent of Web 2.0, and other technology improvements, the Education Technology landscape in the last 5 years is markedly different, and more ripe with possibilities, than that of the years prior to that. With this in mind, I chose to draw a line in terms of the the age of the reports – I’m excluding anything from prior to 2005 (admittedly a somewhat arbitrary line, but a line nonetheless).

Following are the first few reports I’ve found that meet my criteria. As I continue to gather studies, I will set up a page on this site where I will list them. I’ll want to group these reports into some logical categories, probably along the lines of “Studies focused on specific technologies”, “Studies focused on Education Technology in general”, and “Studies focused on Online Education” (the later is clearly a topic that has warranted it’s own growing body of research). I hope readers find these reports insightful, and will appreciate a repository of them once it is put together.

“Educators, Technology and 21st Century Skills: Dispelling Five Myths” from The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University (2010).

This report can currently be found online at: http://www.waldenu.edu/Documents/Degree-Programs/Full_Report_-_Dispelling_Five_Myths.pdf. As the title indicates, the reports examines 5 “myths” about education technology. These myths include “Given that students today are comfortable with technology, teachers’ use of technology is less important to student learning” and “Only high-achieving student benefit from using technology.”

Among the conclusions reached in this study was the following, specific to Myth 3 (the first one noted above): “Teachers’ use of technology matters a great deal. Teachers who use technology frequently to support learning in their classrooms report greater benefits to student learning, engagement and skills from technology than teachers who spend less time using technology to support learning.  Teachers who are frequent technology users also put more emphasis on 21st century skills – and report more pronounced effects on student learning of these skills.”

“Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning (A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies)” from the U.S. Department of Education (2009).

This report is currently available here: http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf. The report is a meta-analysis, combining the results of multiple previous studies. The analysis examined many studies (most from 2004 and beyond), and ultimately incorporated results from 46 of them. 

The study’s conclusion was that, based on the research that it examined, blended learning (combining face-to-face and online learning) was more effective than conventional face-to-face learning. Additionally, online learning alone was also shown to offer a slight advantage over conventional classroom learning. It is important to note that much of the research examined in the report focused on adult learners.

“Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products: Findings from the First Student Cohort”, a report to congress from the Institute of Education Sciences (2007).

This paper can be found online at: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pdf/20074005.pdf. This study was actually conducted in 2004 and 2005 and looked at 16 selected software products (out of 160 submissions). For Reading, Grades 1 and 4 were sampled, and for the Mathematics, Grade 6 and Algebra. The fundamental finding of this study was that “Test Scores Were Not Significantly Higher in Classrooms Using Selected Reading and Mathematics Software Products.”

“Discussion Paper: Impact of Technology on Education” by Debbie Look for PUSD Excellence Committee (2005).

This paper can be found online at http://www.pleasanton.k12.ca.us/Superintendent/Downloads/Technology.pdf. The paper looks at a good number of previous studies (a few of which meet my criteria, and I will have to look into further). The paper concludes that, “Despite some limitations in the scope of the research-based evidence, there does seem to be a sufficient body of data, both quantitative and qualitative, to determine a positive relationship between increased use of educational technologies and student achievement.”

“Quantity versus Quality: A New Approach to Examine the Relationship between Technology Use and Student Outcomes” from the British Journal of Educational Technology, Volume 41 Issue 3 (May 2009).

I found an abstract of this report here, and will have to follow up and try to secure a full copy of the report. In this report, “the author argues that to examine the relationship between technology use and student outcomes, the quality of technology use—how, and what, technology is used—is a more significant factor than the quantity of technology use.” The abstract goes on to state that, “when the quality of technology was examined by investigating the specific types of technology uses, a significant association was identified between technology use and all student outcomes.”

Conclusions and Next Steps
It was certainly encouraging to see that 4 of these 5 studies indicated a positive correlation between education technology and improved student achievement and learning outcomes. As I mentioned above, finding reports that met my simple criteria (published after 2004 and measuring the impact of education technology on learning) proved harder than I anticipated. I found plenty of reports that were either close to the topic, but not on target, or were older than I desired.

I have no doubt there are more studies out there from the last 5 years, and this is just the beginning of an effort to locate and these. I happen to be heading to the Campus Technology 2010 conference in Boston this week, which should present a good opportunity to ask vendors, presenters, and attendees of any such articles they are aware of, to start building on my collection. Of course, if any of you know of any studies you think I should consider adding to the list, please comment below and let us know about them (thanks!).

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
8 Engaging Videos Advocating Better Integration of Technology in Education
5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies
Education Technology – Don’t Lean On It, Leverage It!

Meeting these requirements can position any education technology implementation effort for success.

I’m delighted to post this guest post, contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . Many readers of this column appreciate the challenges that educational institutions face in their efforts to leverage the many technological tools available to today’s educators. In this article, Anna highlights some of the key issues that can limit, or facilitate, adoption of these technologies.

While you can’t doubt the fact that technology brings many benefits to the field of education, it’s not something that everybody has embraced with open arms. The reasons why people are hesitant to accept and adopt technology are varied. And even though our world revolves around technological innovations like the Internet, we are yet to see parallel leaps and bounds in the use of technology in classrooms all around the world.

One of the biggest reasons for this anomaly is cost – unless schools are able to justify the expense spent on the infrastructure, they’re not likely to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on technology. Also, if educational institutions are not sure about making full use of the technology, they’re not going to be in favor of it. So the keys to popularizing technology in education, especially at the school level, are:

• Cost-effectiveness: Technology needn’t be dirt cheap for it to be welcomed by school boards and teachers; all it needs to do is offer a good return on investment. If schools feel that they stand to gain by spending money on technology and that it will benefit their students immensely, they don’t hesitate to try it out.
• Ease of use: It may be technology, but if it is not simple enough to use even by those who are not tech savvy, it’s of no use in any school. If it is to be adopted and used comprehensively and usefully, technology must be simple and easily understood by all those who use it, from the staff to the students.
• Acceptability: Many teachers shun technology because they want to avoid looking like they don’t know how to use it properly. In order to address this issue, schools and technology providers must ensure that teachers accept technology first before it is introduced into the school. And to make this happen, they must be made comfortable using it through training sessions and other similar methods. Only when the technology is accepted will it prove to be valuable in the long term.
• Safety and reliability: And finally, as with any good thing, technology is a double-edged sword that can cut deeply and leave scars if it is not used wisely. When misused, it has the potential to cause personal harm to both those who abuse it and innocent bystanders. So unless schools are assured that the technology is harmless and that safeguards can be installed to protect students from abusing it, they are not going to be too eager to adopt it.
   

With newer forms of delivery being discovered by the day, it has become easier to bring technology to the classroom and make it a valuable educative tool. But no matter how creative education technology becomes, it will only become popular if the above aspects are addressed.

This guest post is contributed by Anna Miller, who writes on the topic of online degrees . We welcome comments, questions, and feedback – please comment below. Anna can also be reached directly at: anna.miller009@gmail.com.

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30 Posts About Free Education Technology Tools & Resources

A lot of schools have over spent on, and under supported, interactive white boards and other education technologies.

I was fascinated by this article yesterday in the Washington Post. The article is a follow up on a prior piece in the Post that explained that “a view is emerging that the large amounts of money schools are spending on instructional gadgets are not necessarily improving student performance.”

The article also has good things to say about education technology and how it often engages students (even if only due to the “gee whiz” factor), and it cites the “thousands of teachers who have made excellent, creative use of whiteboards and other ‘gadgets’”, but it also discusses how “enormous sums of money are being spent on this (and other) technologies without correspondingly thorough and thoughtful professional development.”

As an advocate of Education Technology, some readers might be surprised to hear me agree with some of the thoughts expressed in this article, but frankly, when money is used poorly in the name of education technology, it’s a step backwards for everyone, not an improvement.

Obviously I agree with the idea that education technology can make a difference in education, but I also agree that technology is by no means a solution in and of itself. I worked for over 20 years implementing, supporting, and managing Information Technology in businesses in the manufacturing, sales, and distribution sectors before moving to education. Successful technology expenditures in well run businesses are commonly measured by their Return On Investment. Why is this same type of measure so often not applied in education? Of course, in education, the “return” should be measured first by improved learning outcomes, as opposed to financial gains, but the underlying concept is sound and it is essential to managing education expenditures well.

In the private education sector, there seems to be a higher tendency to apply best practices from the business world to management fundamentals such as those involving investments and expenditures, but it seems that in the public education sector, proven techniques from the business world are often overlooked or discarded. While we can all agree that it is important that education never take a back seat to profits, surely that doesn’t mean that educational institutions can’t leverage successful, sound management concepts.

Investments in technologies such as interactive white boards, student response systems, and lecture capture systems should be managed using commonly accepted practices known to help facilitate such efforts through to successful implementation and impactful results. These investments must be vetted, stakeholders must be bought in to the process, goals need to be clearly defined and communicated, training and support allocated for and provided, and so on.

Without these fundamentals in place, we’re throwing away tax dollars (or private school tuition fees), misdirecting teacher’s efforts, and wasting opportunities to position students for success. Enough already.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Education Technology – Don’t Lean On It, Leverage It!
8 Engaging Videos Advocating Better Integration of Technology in Education
5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies

This guest post by Alexis Montgomery discusses the many skills that students can develop by blogging.

Kids today inhabit a technological world that few of us could have imagined even a couple of decades ago.  They practically live on the internet, spending untold hours on social networking, games, videos, and just plain surfing.  But the internet can also be put to good use as a teaching tool.  Not only are there plenty of educational sites that cater to children with games that promote math, reading, and any number of other subjects, but students can also hone their writing skills by starting a blog. 

At any age, a child is in the process of figuring out who they are, what they like, and how they are unique.  They may have long-term interests or pick up every passing fad.  But one thing is certain, the more they work through their opinions or feelings on a particular subject, the more self-assured they become.  And blogging is a great way for them to solidify their ideas on a topic in a way that focuses on improving their cognitive functions, both in terms of reasoning and coherent communication.  In addition, they can unleash their creativity not only through their writing, but also in the visual design of their site, with backgrounds, pictures, and even personal videos. 

As a teacher, you can make assignments that center on blogging by creating a classroom blog (this way, you’ll be sure to include students who don’t have the requisite computer skills or may not receive the help they need at home).  You can have them post reactions to reading assignments, comment on their favorite subjects or best and worst moments from class each week, or even evaluate each other.  You could also have them do online journaling (private or public) for class.  Even encouraging them to start their own blog outside of class could do wonders for their academic advancement. 

Blogging, like other types of writing, is an excellent way for students to express themselves in a creative way, whether they do it for their own enjoyment or as a method of social interaction (through feedback).  But it can also engage them in analytical thinking, help them learn to organize their thoughts and write with purpose, and expose them to an entire world of information and ideas through the use of technology.  Approaching students at a level they understand and enjoy can make a world of difference in terms of what they put into it, and what they get in return. 

To set up a blog in your classroom, check out sites like Class Chatter, which offers options like individual student blogs, group blogs, and assignment blogs, Ning, which facilitates the creation of your own social network, and Edublogs, which allows teachers to run student blogs and offers cool extras like customizable themes and uploading for images and videos.  The best part is, all of these services are free. 

Alexis Montgomery is a content writer for Online Universities, where you can browse through various online degree programs to find a college that suits your needs. 

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
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Another great example of blogging and other tech uses in the Classroom 

Washington U’s workshops, with their focus on pedagogy first, are a nice model for teaching educators about incorporating technology in the classroom.

Guest Post By Bryn Lutes and Tanya Roth. Bryn and Tanya are instructors at Washington University in St. Louis, MO,  and have helped to evolve the offerings discussed here into the current series of workshops, focused on effective technology use in the classroom. 

These days, most of us likely feel surrounded by technology: email, blogs, smartphones, Twitter, Facebook, text messaging, you name it. Sometimes, it can seem like we’re inundated with any number of new tools to help us work more productively, smarter, and better.

For those of us who teach, it can be even more of a challenge to navigate the many tools available to use in the classroom. But how do we, as educators, assess which tools and how many? Where do we draw the line between using technology for the sake of technology – and using technology effectively in the classroom?

How to use technology most effectively in the classroom is precisely what many grad students at Washington University in St. Louis have been doing every summer since the late 1990s. When the Graduate Student Technology Workshops (GSTW) began in 1997, the initial workshop was conceived as an annual summer program to train grad students on using technology in the classroom. While it began as a way to learn HTML and webpage development, GSTW has had to evolve year after year to keep up with the many changes in technology and our knowledge and thinking – as educators – about how we use technology in the classroom.

This August, workshop participants won’t learn how to create a webpage, nor will they learn anything about HTML. Instead, the workshop “Using Technology Effectively in the Classroom” does just that: the one-day session offers participants a focused approach to using technology in their courses.

First, participants learn the importance of identifying their course goals. This has nothing to do with technology in most cases. Do you want your students to understand key chemical concepts or how to analyze primary sources? Do you want them to become more effective writers? Whatever the course goals, and we found that broadly defined course goals are the same across disciplines, identifying these are the first thing that must happen before an instructor begins to think about technological tools for the course.  

Next, participants learn how to assess various tools in light of their goals. The workshop is structured towards specific goals such as Collaboration, Organization, and Course Management. Within each section, we focus on various tools that can be used to meet such goals. (In some instances, tools like Google Documents can meet multiple needs.)  For each tool we give an overview of what it does, demonstrate basic functionality, and how others are using the tool in the classroom.

Selecting tools each year is perhaps the biggest challenge we face as instructors. We’ve come to rely on what we think of as “old standbys” – the tools or platforms that have been around for years and offer stability and free access (Google Docs, Wikis, Blogs, the campus’s own course management system). But at the same time, we try to introduce participants to new tools and approaches. For instance, while many participants seem leery of using Twitter in the classroom, online whiteboards get good reception.

The key is balance and, to some extent, minimalism. We make it clear to participants that we cannot possibly cover every tool available, but we try to emphasize the importance of flexibility and resourcefulness: keep an eye and an ear out for news on technological tools, and you’ll probably find new resources to consider on a regular basis.  

In the end, we hope that our participants feel comfortable enough to apply the technology on their own, including finding new tools to serve their original course goal.  Having a workshop that is dedicated to pedagogy first is important for ensuring that new technologies are introduced effectively.

To learn more about the GSTW series, please visit:
http://graduate-workshops.artsci.wustl.edu.

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
Great Ed Tech Story: K-5 Summer Tech camp changes lives for low SES students
Great Education Technology Story: CPS Student Response System helps to improve FCAT scores
Education Technology – Don’t Lean On It, Leverage It!
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‘Teacher Tech’ is an informative Education Technology resource worth being tuned into.

I have the good fortune of being one of a handful of educators and bloggers chosen to participate in a series of guest posts on Microsoft’s teacher-focused blog site this week.

Just for clarity’s sake, I should mention that I am not actually a teacher (the other guest bloggers are), I am Director of Institutional Information & Tech at a small private college in New York. In this role I interface with faculty regularly and provide support, research, technical ingenuity, and strive to impart continual exposure to instructional and related technologies.

This week’s Teacher Tech guest posts are …

• “Do You Blog? I Challenge You!”
  by Lee Kolbert, who blogs at: A GeekyMomma’s Blog 
• “The Two Top Areas for Keeping Today’s Students Top Notch”
  by Vicki Davis, who blogs at:  The Cool Cat Teacher Blog
• “5 More Internet Technologies Educators Should Be Aware Of”
  by me (from right here on EmergingEdTech)
• “Keeping the Door Of Learning Wide Open”
  by Steve Anderson, who blogs at: Blogging About the Web 2.0  Connected Classroom
• “More Simple Ways To Introduce Reluctant Colleagues To Technology”
  by Larry Ferlazzo, who blogs at: Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

It’s an honor to be included in the company of these educators and fellow bloggers. Please stop by and check out these great posts on Teacher Tech today!

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As I was combing through a few different drafted posts and ideas for this week’s mid week post, this commercial came on. It sure caught my attention. Kudos to Kaplan for packing such a punch. I had to share it.

Share this with a colleague today.

[Ed Note: I have noticed that the Google ad spot at the bottom of this page at times displays a Kaplan U. ad - this is purely coincidental, as these ads are randomly generated. I am not beholden to Kaplan in any way (but yes, I was impressed by this commercial spot of theirs).]

Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
8 Engaging Videos Advocating Better Integration of Technology in Education
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Education Technology – Don’t Lean On It, Leverage It!
10 Internet Technologies that Educators Should Be Informed About

Forgive me for repeating myself, but I feel a certain passion for this recent post, and I don’t think it got a fair deal, being posted on a holiday (Labor Day), and at the beginning of a week where many of us were swamped with the start of a new school year. For this week’s “midweek update” I am promoting my post “Education Technology – Don’t Lean It, Leverage It!” from earlier this month. Please click through and give the first paragraph or two a quick read – I hope this will interest you enough to read further, and to also pass it on to a colleague if you think it can make an impact and encourage someone to give education technology a fair shake in the classroom. Thanks!

“Are you using Internet tools to engage students in the classroom and improve learning outcomes, or are you just using technology to decrease the time you spend lecturing and interacting with your students? Click here to read on …“

Are you using Internet tools to engage students in the classroom and improve learning outcomes, or are you just using technology to decrease the time you spend lecturing and interacting with your students?

There are many great internet based tools available to bring new elements of collaboration, interaction, and even a little fun to the instructional process and thereby better engage and motivate your students and enhance learning outcomes. Of course, it is also entirely possible to use technology as a crutch or a “baby sitter”, but this is a rather unfortunate use of these tools and can give education technology a bad name.

Many of you may have seen this excellent, widely discussed article, “Teaching Naked” by teacher Jose’ A. Bowen this summer. Mr. Bowen suggests stripping the classroom of technology and focusing class time on discussion and interactive activities. I certainly agree that scrolling through PowerPoint slide decks as a replacement for lecturing is not optimal instructional technique. In his article, Mr. Bowen also discusses how to leverage technology outside of the classroom (online tests, assigning homework via email, etc.) to free up more time for interaction in the classroom. I think this article presents a great set of thoughts on appropriate use of education technology and I thoroughly appreciate many of these ideas. However, I would not suggest going so far as to completely remove the use of technology from the classroom.

I am certainly not alone in my belief that the use of Internet based technologies can enhance learning outcomes and motivate students to participate in the instructional process. Over the last 2 weeks I conducted a brief poll here that asked, “What new Internet technologies will you be introducing in the classroom this year?” In this survey, I posed the question, ”How do you envision these technologies enhancing student engagement and improving learning outcomes?” Following is a sampling of some of the responses:

• “When students are actually creating rather than listening and taking notes, they will be engaged in the lessons and learn (remember) more which should have a positive impact on learning outcomes.”
• “Spark interest, increase student connectedness, provide for a variety of learning styles.”
• “Encouraging new forms and outlets for their creativity, collaborating skills, tapping into their world to make learning seem more relevant.”
• “The increased motivation for our students to be able to use tools that they are more comfortable with will be huge!”

Educators that fail to learn about and leverage Internet technologies are failing to take advantage of a wide range of (often free or very low cost) tools that appeal to students and can have a wonderful impact on the instructional process. I am not advocating using technology merely for the sake of the technology, but rather to have a basic understanding of tools such as those advocated in “10 internet technologies that educators should be informed about“, and see if some of them might play a constructive role in some of your classes. This popular ”5 Reasons Why Educators Need To Embrace Internet Technologies” post is yet another effort to edify some of the key reasons why instructors should consider the productive application of education technology.

The Internet abounds with articles about the use of educational technologies in and out of the classroom. Some of these articles offer insight into how these tools can enhance learning outcomes, and many of them illustrate how they encourage student engagement and motivation. Various past posts here on EmergingEdTech offer examples of this, such as:

• Another great example of blogging and other tech uses in the Classroom
• Article about effective uses of social media in the classroom
• Blogging in (and out of) the classroom
• 6 Examples of Using Twitter in the Classroom 

In closing, I would simply like to suggest that if you have never used any of these tools, you should make it a point to experiment with one of them this year. Even if you aren’t delighted with the results in the end, you will certainly have learned something, and you should be pleased with yourself for getting out of your comfort zone and stretching a bit. On the other hand, if your intention is simply to find something to make your job easier, to “lean on it” rather than “leverage it”, then I would suggest that you look beyond that and consider one of the more interactive types of technologies, like storytelling and timeline tools, collaboration and brainstorming tools, or online interactive whiteboards. Lastly, if you are already a contented user of some of these technologies in the classroom, maybe you could share your experiences with a fellow instructor, or pass this article on, and see if together we can’t make a new Education Technology convert.

Thanks, and best of luck in all your endeavors in this new school year!

[Ed. Note: To watch and listen to educators far more eloquent than I make the case for better leveraging of Ed Tech in the classroom, check out some of these great videos: 8 Engaging Videos Advocating Better Integration of Technology in Education.]