Post 2

Our reading in Chapter 14 in the Lee textbook toughed on something that I feel strongly about: not using technology just to use technology.  As much as I love to get teachers into using technology, the technology has to be used as a means to achieve an educational goal.  There are lots of good uses of technology (I've seen amazing things), but there are bad uses as well.  The book lays out three items to consider - your technology should fit at least one of these:

1. The technology should improve student' opportunities to learn
2. The technology should create new learning opportunities that would not otherwise be available.
3. The technology should enhance the learning experience by motivation or encouraging students to learn.

I like all of these items and I think they all can apply to some situations.  In my district we think about technology being able to Replace, Enhance, or Innovate (REI) what you are teaching.  

REPLACE
make old practice obsolete (i.e. handouts, calculators...)
ENHANCE
make better practices we already do (i.e. Interactive textbooks, email communication...)
INNOVATE
do what we were never able to do before (i.e. back channel during videos/presentations, student driven differentiation...)