What is Successful Tech Integration?

When I began my Tech Integration journey a dozen years ago, I would not have been able to fathom that the device in our hands would be more powerful that a Star Trek tricorder.

CBS Photo Archive, Getty Images. “Tricorder Image.” ‘Star Trek’ Tricorders Are Boldly Going Forward, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 June 2017, www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Star-Trek-tricorders-are-boldly-going-11206989.php. Accessed 4 Jan. 2020.

I couldn’t envision a world where students could have access to information at so many levels, from almost any source, from anywhere in the world.

But the tricorder was not a creation device. It wasn’t even a communicator. The communicator on Star Trek was a separate device worn on the uniform. The cell phones in many of our students’ hands far out-surpass the technology of even our future imagination.

My thought when I went into tech integration was to have learning move away from the teacher being the one expert in the room, letting students have ownership in how they showcase what they have learned.

I envisioned a learning environment where you could enter and the device (computer, tablet, phone) would be as invisible as a calculator or a pencil. A tool used when necessary, put aside when it was not. But available to revolutionize what is possible for student access to information — and to magnify their creation power.

This article in Edutopia, “What Is Successful Technology Integration?” looks like it was first written in 2007, about the time that Tech Integration became one of my focuses. (The links have been updated, so while the date on the article hasn’t changed, I believe the content has.)

The article mirrors my thoughts:

Successful technology integration is achieved when the use of technology is:

  • Routine and transparent
  • Accessible and readily available for the task at hand
  • Supporting the curricular goals, and helping the students to effectively reach their goals

The product of powerful tech integration, with my early enthusiasm, sounds like this list from the article:

These tools can provide students and teachers with:

  • Access to up-to-date, primary source material
  • Methods of collecting/recording data
  • Ways to collaborate with students, teachers, and experts around the world
  • Opportunities for expressing understanding via multimedia
  • Learning that is relevant and assessment that is authentic
  • Training for publishing and presenting their new knowledge

 

My questions are these…..

How much is too much power in the hands of students–and citizens in society?

Have the devices in our hands opened us up to the world, yet made our world smaller?

How have the possibilities on our devices gone beyond primary source materials, collecting data, collaboration, expressing our understanding, authentic and relevant learning and assessment, and presenting new knowledge?

 

 

 

 

“What Is Successful Technology Integration?” Edutopia, George Lucas Educational Foundation, 6 Nov. 2007, www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-description. Accessed 4 Jan. 2020.