Teaching with Tech
Educators affirm that electronic collaboration may force learners to interact and problem solve in ways that are compatible with constructivist principles of two or more learners strategizing, sharing knowledge and experiences, linking new to old knowledge, and contextualizing learning …electronic environments require learners to take an active role and be agents in their own learning.
Having grown up in the 80s and 90s and finished high school at the start of the new millennium, I have lived through an explosion of technology. As tech continues to evolve, schools administrators and teachers who see the potential for tech to transform teaching and learning are looking for ways to harness technology in the classroom. Of course, not every classroom has 1:1 laptops or iPads, but technology has played a critical role in the language classroom since the advent of audio recording… even before cassette tapes!
Growing up when I did, I’m also old enough to have learned in classrooms without a lot of tech presence. One or two class computers, an overhead projector, and chalkboards are what I remember in most classrooms. As an educator, that gives me the advantage of being able to question and challenge the use of technology for technology’s sake and avoid pitfalls of subbing in technological “solutions” in the classroom that fail to create functional change or improve upon low-tech methods.
In my classroom, I view tech as a tool to adapt lessons for student with different approaches to learning, diverse backgrounds, and educational exceptionalities. This might mean creating a digital recording of a reading assignment for a particular student to follow along with at home like this one. Most clearly, though, you’ll see tech used in my classroom as a way to enrich lessons for all students. Student projects and products will help to create a learning environment that encourages positive interactions, active engagement, and self-motivation. Task-based activities or assignments that lead students to create original digital media, be it a video like this one, an audio recording, or a visual piece, provide opportunities for students to go deep with the Spanish language AND work toward nonlinguistic, real-world goals. Tech helps language teachers meet goals they’ve been aiming at for decades. Studies show, for example, that electronic collaboration such as working in a collaborative writing app like Simplenote may force learners to interact and problem solve in ways that are compatible with constructivist principles of two or more learners strategizing, sharing knowledge and experiences, linking new to old knowledge, and contextualizing learning.
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