Most Effective Educational Technologies

A friend of mine is studying to become a teacher. (But she's not one of my students.) :-)

She reached out to me recently, asking a question for an assignment she's working on for class. She was to reach out to practicing educators to get their input on some issues related to student development, and teaching adolescents. Here's one question this assignment raised:

What technologies are most effective to facilitate learning in adolescents?

Great question there, I think! Probably I love this question because it gets at the intersection between several of my loves in the field of education: educational technologies, teaching adolescents, and effective teaching techniques.

After a little thought, here is how I responded:

I've become more and more skeptical of the promises made by most EdTech companies about how they will revolutionize learning for students. Most tech tools can be used effectively in some situations, by some teachers, with some students, to learn some content. The trick is, I think, to match the right technology or communications tool for the content to be taught, with an eye to the needs and interests of the students. Unless the tech tools are being used to transform what is possible, I actually prefer low tech tools (markers on white boards, pencil and paper, hands-on manipulatives and games, etc.) to digital tools. I think a shift in pedagogy is usually more powerful than any addition of a new technology.

Don't get me wrong; I'm still a technophile in general. I am still interested in how technologies can be leveraged to foster deep learning, to stir interest and engagement with the content, to make new ways of sharing learning with authentic audiences possible.

But I guess I'm turning into a crumudgeonly, skeptical academic, at least when it comes to sweeping claims about the "most effective" digital tools of the moment. I like digital tools, and I use them in my own teaching practice. But I also keep a tub of Crayola markers and rolls of paper handy, because they are also great tools for teaching and learning.

What do you think? Are there digital tools that are bomb-proof, guaranteed-to-engage? Or are most educational technologies over-hyped?

Image by April Gustafson [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]
(Don't get me wrong...Chromebooks have potential...but how are they going
to be used? I think it's important to ask these questions and wonder...)