Week 12: New & Emerging Digital Technologies

Week 12 Question.

'Lesson 7' in the second reading states: "ICT cannot be used all the time, in all situations." When do you think you should use technology in your own classroom?

Response.

Learning about our history does help us understand the future (O’Brien, 2017).  As a pre-service history teacher, I believe this to be true.  As stated by Sanders and George (2017) educators can gain insights into what works best in the classroom by reflecting on the literature from our recent history.  I do agree with Sanders and George (2017) that we should realise that digital technology is not going to improve learning just because it is there and that teachers in some subjects will be able to make better use of it than others (pp. 2924-2929).

The best use of digital technology is for differentiation, giving teachers more than one way of presenting information and for making learning accessible to all students, regardless of ability, socio-economic status or environment.  Turning on the text when viewing a video, so students can read the text as well as hear it, can help students who are hard of hearing.  The issue of distance to information can be overcome by students now being able to look up documents or books without having to physically go to the library. People can collaborate without having to be in physically in the same room. This is as long as students to have access to a good (not old and slow) laptops and ensure they have good internet connectivity.

Digital technologies allow teachers to present information to their students in a variety of ways.  Teachers could use a YouTube video by Crash Course History to give students a quick run-down of the start of World War 1, rather than simply studying a textbook. Technology gives students different ways of presenting their findings in an assignment, depending on their strengths (Wilson et al., 2016, p, 87); some can make a video of their findings, some can write an essay, others can design a visual representation.