3 Times I Didn't Use EdTech With a Goal in Mind (And What You Can Learn From It!)

by Kyle Chapman

A mad LMS scientist, flaunting an unused key to meaningful tech use

In early reading related to EDUC 5303G, I came across a short blog post titled "4 Keys to Incorporating Meaningful Technology in the Classroom" by Kathryn Battaglino. I was struck by the first two "keys" that were discussed, especially the first, which was "First the Goal, then the Tool". After reading and summarizing it I found myself reflecting on all of the times when I have been like an LMS-focused mad scientist, doing things because I could without thinking about whether I should.

I thought of three really good examples of using a new technology with students that went wrong because there goal wasn't given careful consideration. I'm hoping you can learn from these, and if you've got your own examples, please share in the comments!

The Time I Used An Unfinished and Experimental Tool

First, I thought of a time in 2014 when I was trying to see how Javascript could be utilized within D2L BrightSpace content pages. Certain things worked, and other things did not. I decided to make a really simple page that would parse a course's Classlist and literally pull a single random student's full name and internal email address, which I then encouraged my students to use to find partners for a peer review exercise. This was very poorly thought through; each student got another random student's name whether they already had a partner or not.

Random Person Finder: Fun to build, pointless to use

The Time I Used a Tool That Overcomplicated Things Instead of Simplifying Things

Secondly, I thought of a time when I had made an application to practice some coding for a new year, and I made a desktop application that created a series of random events for the students to respond to. The problem with creating an application that makes a series of random events is that I then need to be able to prepare a response to any sequence of events; I would have been much further ahead simply coming up with an applicable series of random events rather than trying to incorporate the little application I had been working on. Using the application was cumbersome, and each transition where I had to refer back to the tool resulted in a lapse of attention of many of the students.

The Time I Encouraged Someone to Use Technology for the Sake of Policy

Most controversially, my previous role as a Learning Technologist had me addressing basic needs and consulting on best practices with faculty from varied disciplines from across the institution. Policy came into place such that faculty were told, at a bare minimum, to keep their grades visible and up-to-date in the LMS, and to post announcements as needed. The problem with this is that, as simple as it sounds, the technology doesn't come naturally to some faculty and in many cases even their students. I strongly encouraged a professor to create an elaborate grade book for a portfolio-based fine arts course, and it simply didn't work for them. By the end of the semester we found ourselves entering final grades off of an eraser-mark-blotted sheet of graph paper once again. There was a policy, and it's nice to adhere to that, but it wasn't designed with this faculty, their students, and their specific needs in mind.

Summary

In all of these cases, the goal either hadn't been identified or had been identified poorly.

In the first case, the goal of the application was experimenting with the LMS, and it wasn't intended to solve any classroom problems; even if selecting a partner were an identified problem in that scenario, there were a lot of other low-tech solutions that would've worked better and more quickly. Using technology where no need exists was a mistake.

In the second case, I utilized the tool because it was interesting without thinking about whether it was useful. And it wasn't. Using technology when a simpler, low-tech tool would work as well or better was a mistake.

In the third case, it was technology we were mandated to use but it didn't make sense when consideration was given to the actual circumstances and stakeholders. Mandating the use of technology when it isn't relevant is a mistake.

Thankfully, at least with the first two, I am a programming teacher and being able to show the product under the hood was its own teachable moment. I'm also not terribly afraid to be wrong sometimes!

I would be very curious to hear if other educators had other times when they realized they used technology without a goal in mind! Please drop a comment below.

Sources

Battaglino, K. (2018). 4 Keys to Incorporating Meaningful Technology in the Classroom. Retrieved from https://nearpod.com/blog/4-keys-incorporating-meaningful-technology-classroom/