How Technology Proves Its Worth in the Classroom

I was in a classroom the other day observing a teacher implement a tech tool in her classroom. She was substituting digital journals for the hand written one’s. Students were using Google Docs to write their journals instead of the pencil and paper they had been using up until now.

On the surface, students were simply substituting tech for a classroom activity that had used traditional methods. If you’re not familiar with SAMR, this is the very beginning level of instituting tech. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this. For teachers that don’t use tech on a regular basis (such as this teacher), this was a step in the right direction.

But there is more going on here than students typing away on their Chromebooks. Students were learning how to use Google Docs. These were 7th grade students. Many of them had very little knowledge of a keyboard beyond their phones, let alone how to format documents. Before the teacher cut the students loose on opening up a doc and begin typing, she went through the basics with them. Students generally knew how to open a blank document, but when it came to centering a title, changing its color, and changing the font, some hadn’t a clue. And that’s where the real learning came in.

Before the students had put one word into the doc, they learned many of the things that go with changing a doc to suite their individuality. They also learned about the “Explore” tool that allowed them to search for pictures without leaving their document and insert them by dragging them into the document, “pretty cool” one student said.

The students left that day with technical knowledge they’ll not only use in other classes, but for years to come. That’s where the use of tech in the classroom really proves its worth.