Bridge the Gap

Bridging the gap between teacher use of technology and student use is a topic I’ve been looking at for a number of years. Back in 2006, a new program was started in Florida that was an effort to equip teachers with the knowledge needed to guide their students in the use of various tech tools. Back then, it started as teacher training in PowerPoint, GarageBand and iMovie (Mac), Audacity and Movie Maker (PC). As various other tools were developed (Evernote 2008), they too were shared with educators around the state. Although the teachers did benefit from the four day training, it was often viewed as too much, not enough time to absorb everything and a multitude of other similar comments. We encouraged educators to try one new thing and to expand and try something else once their comfort level improved. Teachers created numerous enhanced PowerPoint presentations with animations, sound, video clips and so forth. This added to their instruction and gave it a digital feel. But, what about the students? How do teachers bridge the gap and get kids to use technology in the educational setting. It is true that students live with their phones these days. Have you seen a teen without a phone recently? As their digital world takes up much of their time they are gaming, communicating, creating, problem solving and more. Are educators channeling student knowledge into the classroom? Is it enough to suggest that a book report be written and submitted via email or one of the many educational portals in use today? Would it be advantageous to have a student collaborate with another student who read the same book using Google Drive, create a drawing (Google Draw) that expresses the overall topic of the book and have it be included in the document, locate the book on Amazon to provide pricing info for those who may wish to purchase the book, share their report with a minimum of three other students and ask for comments? It is time to see just what kids can do using the technology available to them. Provide opportunities to use these tools in new and creative ways. Give suggestions for various productivity tools and allow kids to choose what works for them. You may find, Bridging the Gap: Technology Trends and Use of Technology in Schools, to be a good resource for a PLN discussion. (http://www.ifets.info/journals/16_2/6.pdf)