Priyank Verma

Here is it. End of week 1 of the course 11.133x.

This week was a little more focused on educational technology. It covered various vital topics like  :

1. Stakeholders in ed tech.
2. Evaluation and assessment.
3. What makes a good ed tech?
4. Future of teaching.
5. Where to start with ed tech?
6. Concept of SAMR.

Stakeholders in Ed Tech : 

Stakeholders in ed tech are the ones who are going to be affected by the ed tech the most.

Major stakeholders are :

• Students
• Teachers
• Parents
• Administration of the educational institution.

Ed Tech companies making the ed tech products.

Evaluation v/s Assessment :

Evaluation is very different from assessment.

For evaluation we need to know our goals and we analyze how well we have accomplished our goals.
Assessment is just checking the state of something.

Why use Educational Technology?

There are many good reasons to choose Ed Tech :

• Creativity
• Collaboration.
• Communication.
• Breadth and Depth of the topic is covered in a more efficient way.
• Flexibility.
• Personalization and differentiation at the same time.
• Assessment and evaluation.
• Efficiency.

Blended Learning  :

Blended learning is the combination of learning face to face and distant.

What is happening at the class room is integrated with what is happening at a distance.

What makes a good Ed Tech?

Start with the goals not with the technologies.
Teachers and admins should collaborate and understand each other for successful implementation of technologies.

Tools should be :

• Easy to use
• Easy to set up
• Easy to access.
• Access to data should be efficient.

Qualities of a good Ed Tech Implementation : 

• Goals should be clear. What we want to achieve with the educational technology should not be vague.
• Strong focus should be on professional learning.
• Goals again should be higher priorities than ed tech.
• Long range plan should be made regarding that ed tech.
• This even included funding required to maintain and continue that ed tech.
• Maintenance of ed tech afterwards.

How teaching looks like in future ?

This is just my perception of how teaching is going to change for good in the near future by the impact of ed tech.

• More communication between students and teachers.
• Teaching students how to keep learning.
• Connecting world to classroom and classroom to world. MOOCs are good examples of this one.
• Meet individual learning needs.
• Social context of learning getting more emphasize. This include connecting students to communities for better knowledge transfer stream

Where to begin with Educational Technology?

• Place to start is were you are not doing well in your study curriculum.
• Technology should be always in the service of learning goals, not just for the sake of having more technology in the classroom.
• We get fixated to the logistics technology that we lose track of pedagogy technology.

Concept of SAMR : 

S : Substitution of a tool.
A : Augmenting a lesson.
M : Modify a lesson because of ed tech
R : Redefinition.

Start with objective…. technology will be used to serve that objective.

Keep in mind before choosing ed tech :
1. The pedagogical basics.
2. Implementation in context.
3. Evaluation.

This week was very keen and precise to cover above discussed points related to ed tech.

It actually helps you broaden your point of view as a programmer and creator of ed tech. What goes behind the curtains before one decided to go for some ed tech? What are the hesitations of the customers regarding  ed tech? What are there requirements? This week was all about brainstorming these points while listening to interviews with pioneers of the field.

Next week hasn’t started by the time I wrote this article. Let’s see what comes in next week. Super excited!