Digital Eyes

Usually in education, when we talk about doing more with less, we are talking about money or resources. This time, I'm talking about less content. What if instead of covering all the material in our curriculum, we covered less? I've been paying a lot of attention recently to the impact of feedback on our students. Turns out, we don't often do a very good job of providing timely, specific feedback. More importantly, even when we do, we don't provide time for students to respond to that feedback. Think about it. How often do you give students feedback on a project or learning target and then provide them time to relearn or rework it so that the feedback is meaningful and impactful? For me, the answer is easy... not often enough. What if we spent more time on each concept or product? Yes, we would have to make some tough decisions about what we don't have time to teach, but we would be providing such amazing learning opportunities for our kids. I have used this exa...

Just about everyday, I hear from someone that there is too much technology and things change too quickly. They may have a point. After all, here are just a few changes that welcomed our teachers back to school this year: New computers with an updated operating system. Updated software for our student response devices. Student iPads and all the new apps that go with it. Updated software for our SmartBoards. Add to that all the good old stuff that is still around, from MOODLE to Google and everything in between. It seems like each year, there is more to master. As the guy, or one of a small team of people, who are responsible for supporting teachers in their work to effectively use these tools in their classrooms, I sometimes feel like I need to apologize to them for all the opportunities that are out there. So is there such a thing as too much? Perhaps the issue is not how much is out there, but how we perceive our role in using these things. We never complain that ther...