Most Impactful Education Technologies (Survey Results, Part Two)

Further examining educator's technological preferences and commentary.

In Sunday's post we examined some of the results from last month's survey, which looked to gather educator's insights into the question, “Which technologies can most impact student learning?” Today we wrap this up by looking at some additional data from the survey.

Top Votes for “Second Most” and “Third Most” Potentially Impactful Technologies
After focusing on technologies ranked as “Most Impactful” in our last post, we now move on to those chosen as either 2nd or 3rd most impactful. For “second most impactful“, one technological concept rose well above all the others: Technology-enabled Project Based Learning. For “third most”, a different technology rose slightly above all the others: Tablet Computers (iPad, etc.).

Here's some of what educators had to say about why each of these technologies can make a meaningful difference in student learning:

Technology-enabled Project Based Learning

“Project based learning is the future of education as it allows for creativity and direct[s] students to learn what is needed to be successful, with the support of technology.”

“Project-based learning moves students into the realm of create, analyzing, and collaborating.  These skill are vital as they get ready for the “real world” and using technology to accomplish this will increase engagement, motivation, and involvement on their part.”

“Student based projects really touch on all 21st century learning skills”

Tablet Computers (iPad, etc.) 

“The possibilities for tablets [are] unlimited as far as I can see.  The flexibility, functionality, and usefulness of these are just now being explored.”

“Mobile and tablet will shape the way learning is delivered, not only for distance students, but on campus as well. They will promote a kind of engagement that has not been seen before. Although there are risks, the net benefit will be [a] higher standard of learning and efficiency.”

“Tablet PC's are a gut call.  They haven't been around enough to know for sure, but they [can] be used for inputting, sharing, retrieving, storing, and outputting information in a simple to use & portable way.  I'm betting these will be the biggest game changer since the Apple II.”

“ipad – innovative must have resource”

Combined Votes
The one thing that jumps out when we add votes for Most, Second, or Third most impactful and rank the technologies based on total combined votes is that “Technology-enabled Project Based Learning” moves from the number 9 slot (in this ‘most impactful‘ category ranking) to number 2, further supporting it's importance.

 

Does the ability of education technologies to make an impact on student learning vary widely for different grade levels and/or in different subjects?
Nearly two thirds of survey participants responded “yes”. If we run this survey again next year to see how trends evolve, we'll offer an incentive to get more feedback, which should yield larger sub-sets of data, which will then allow for easier comparison and contrast of how educators at different grade levels perceive the potential impact of different technologies.

Thanks again to all survey respondents for completing the survey and providing this great feedback!

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Note to readers who submitted feedback to the 11/6/11 post, “iPad App Developer Seeks Teacher Input On New App (Plus, Win The App For Your School By Naming It!)” – Mobile Simplified has announced the winner of the app naming contest – click on over to the post and scrool down to the comments to read more!

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Related Posts (if the above topic is of interest, you might want to check these out):
10 Excellent iPad Applications for Teachers
The Education Technologies That Educators Believe Can Have The Biggest Impact On Student Learning (Survey Results)
Using The iPad As A Digital Whiteboard (Plus 4 Cool Free Apps To Try It Out)