Technology and ICU Students - Should more technology be used to engage students?

This 7 min. video came around today to all instructors in our English Language Program from Rab, a colleague who is active in introducing new technologies into our curriculum. I have great respect for teachers like him who are constantly updating methods of research and teaching and sharing new ideas. I tend to be a bit more conservative "wait and see" type before I adopt new tools and systems, and even more cautious about proposing changes that will affect other teachers, but my cycle of innovation and experimentation has been getting faster over the years thanks to some very progressive type colleagues I have had a chance to work with.

Basically, the message in the video is that teachers using "traditional" methods of teaching should consider using more networked technologies such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts to engage and stimulate learning. The message suggests that our students are bored by traditional methods and want more interactive and more individually-relevant and customized learning.

So, what do I think about this?



Most importantly, I agree with the point that learning should always be relevant to the lives of students. If instructors cannot convincingly persuade students that what they are doing is strongly relevant and valuable to their personal goals and future development, there is something wrong with the learning or with the communication about the learning. Withing a standardized curriculum, especially one that has a "one size fits all" or "everyone must do this exactly the same way" kind of approach, making required content relevant to students can be a big challenge for instructors. Some may argue that "good students" just accept what they have to do and make it meaningful for themselves. I agree that students like that are nice to teach and make our lives easy--we enforce that on them by GPA systems and so on, so they often have no choice but to be nice. But, ideally, learning systems should incorporate a large number of choices for students which they make to customize and personalize highly relevant learning based on informed discussions with their instructors.

They should be defining what they need to learn by themselves and discovering the answers on their own, using a variety of resources including the instructors. Assessments/evaluations of learning should be more flexible and dynamic to help students find their goals and needs, and to encourage them to be resourceful, thoughtful, and reflective.

The Reading/Writing Workshop Method, with some variations for college level learning, is one promising way for achieving this, and I have enjoyed researching and incorporating elements of the method into my own teaching where I can.

I also agree with the idea that teaching methods should keep up with the communication methods and learning methods that young learners enjoy using. As the video argues, teenagers today are used to learning through networks, through Googling searches when they want information, through blogging when they have ideas, text-messaging or twittering when they want feedback or comments from friends, and accessing online audio/video/textual information that teaches them on demand.

As long as all of my students have somewhat equal access to such tools, I am more than willing to incorporate their use when I am teaching. I only worry about inequality of access. Not all students have iPods or high-tech cell phones, or even Internet access at home. Most do, but not all, and that makes me hesitate somewhat.

Of course, I also know that if most students have it, it is valuable to just jump in and try it to experiment and develop new ways even if some students may be inconvenienced...they will find ways to survive. I have seen colleagues go ahead and impose some new and experimental system on students only to lead to a high amount of technology-related stress at the expense of other learning that the students should be focusing on. I usually try to find a balance by making new tool use optional rather than required.

For some reason, the program that I am teaching in now does not seem to completely match what I wrote above. My own teaching does not completely match it either. I want to keep working on making learning activities relevant and meaningful for my students.