Evaluating Technology for Use in Education

Due to the fact that, at the moment, I am not a full-time classroom teacher I searched for articles on technology evaluation rubrics that could be applied to different fields or subjects. I hope to be able to transition into a traditional classroom teaching position next year, but I am unsure as to what field I might be teaching and felt as though the general evaluation ideas that I found in this article would be beneficial in helping me to assess the benefit of integrating specific technology into my future classroom.

The first article that I found is entitled “Evaluating Technology Uses for the Classroom” by Elaine Plybon , written for Examiner at www.examiner.com on June 17, 2012. The link to this article is as follows: http://www.examiner.com/article/evaluating-technology-resources-for-the-classroom

Although this article is relatively short compared to other article that I have read so far this semester, I found the information to be quite helpful. At the beginning of this article, the author discusses the idea that the use of technology in the classroom is sometimes viewed as a negative thing because the technology is not being used in a productive and beneficial way. She suggests that technology should only be used in the classroom in “one of two ways”. One of the first ways that technology should be used is to help “streamline the learning process”. Another way, is to “increase depth and complexity” of learning activities. The author goes on to mention how the acronym R.I.C.E. can be used to evaluate the use of technology in the classroom. The R stands for relevance because it is important for instructors to determine whether or not the technology is relevant to their learning objective. Implementation is the meaning behind the I in this acronym. This is where teachers have to look at how easy the technology is to use and how much training might be involved in order for them to implement it into their lesson. The C stands essentially stands for the cost involved in using the technology. Cost is a big factor for many teachers, as budgets are often limited. The author does point out that there are “almost always free alternatives” if educators are willing to search for them. Finally, the E in this acronym stands for effectiveness. The use of the technology must have the desired effect or it has not been a successful addition to the learning environment. I feel that this acronym could be very beneficial for teachers to use when evaluating technology because it is easy to remember and addresses several important points of consideration.

In my search for a second article pertaining to technology evaluation, I came across an interesting article that uses pedagogy as a guide in determining what kinds of digital tools would be most beneficial. The article is entitled “A Pedagogical Framework for Digital Tools” by Niels Jakob, written for Edudemic at www.edudemic.com on December 20, 2012. The link to the article is as follows: http://www.edudemic.com/a-pedagogical-framework-for-digital-tools/.

I found this article to be an interesting take on evaluation of the potential use of technology (digital resources) in education. Instead of what I considered a more traditional format of examining whether or not the use of various technology or tools “fit” into the desired learning objectives, this evaluation uses a pedagogical framework to help determine if the tools “fit” into the instructor’s form of teaching or pedagogy. The article discusses three different forms of pedagogy and the types of tools that could be most effective to accompany each teaching style. Monological teaching is based on an idea by L. Wittgenstein where the teacher is essentially the holder of the knowledge and teaching takes place when the teacher communicates that knowledge to the student.  The article states that “distributing and intermediary” tools are the best digital tools for this type of pedagogy. Dialogical teaching is based on a concept developed by J. Dewey, where the student has “an inherent basis of knowledge, which can be developed through interaction with the outside world and solving problems”. For this type of teaching style, the article suggests that the use of tools that support “problem oriented work”, as well as advanced learning games and simulations would be the most beneficial. The third pedagogy is the Polyphonic form of teaching, based on the idea by K.E. Logstrup. With this style of teaching , it is believed that knowledge is “created through an equal exchange of many different individuals’ perceptions” and learning occurs through the exchange of information among students and the teacher. For this teaching style, the article recommends tools that “support equal collaboration and the production of common knowledge”.  Overall, I found the idea that teachers should look at their desired teaching style in order to evaluate the use of digital tools in their classrooms an interesting take on evaluating technology for use in the classroom. While I do not think that this is the most practical approach to technology evaluation, it is certainly something to consider.