Falling Behind?

20 Warning Signs That you are Falling Behind the Times with Technology as a Teacher

by KELLY WALSH on JANUARY 19, 2014

Repost from http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/01/20-warning-signs-that-you-are-falling-behind-with-technology-as-a-teacher/

Worried That You’re Not in Touch with Today’s Technological Tools in the Classroom? Do some of These Describe you?

Okay, so some of these are tongue-in-cheek, but some of them are quite serious. It can be challenging to be a teacher in 2014 and be technologically out-of-date. Not only will you be lost when students and other teachers look to discuss some of these technologies with you, but you are missing out on tools that can enable students to stay in touch with learning outside of the classroom, and much more.

Most people don’t like change very much, and that’s normal and quite understandable, but if you bury your head in the sand the world is going to pass you by.

That’s not to say that tech for the sake of tech is a good idea on the classroom – it’s most certainly not. Instructional technology use should be driven by pedagogy and not the other way around. We keep that in focus here on EmergingEdTech as we explore various uses of technology in the instructional setting.

For those of you who are on your game with today’s tech tools, I hope you give these a look anyway (you’ll probably get a laugh out of some of them).

http://www.slideshare.net/emergingedtech/20-warningsigns

Here’s the list in plain text:

1. You think that ‘mobile learning’ is taking a field trip
2. You don’t make homework assignments or other important information available to students on a web page
3. You don’t even remember how to get to the web page your school provides you
4. You think that ‘tweeting’ is for the birds
5. You think a Personal Learning Network is your television
6. You think social media is just for teenagers and stay-at-home moms
7. You think an iPad is someone’s groovy apartment
8. You believe an ‘electronic portfolio’ is a briefcase full of CDs and software
9. You wish you knew how to use your Blackberry better
10. You think that ‘lecture capture’ is what students do when they take notes
11. You think that ‘digital learning’ is something computers do
12. You think Instagram is a new service from Western Union
13. You think that Vine is something to swing on or pick grapes from
14. You’re surprised that most students don’t use email
15. You don’t let your students use Wikipedia as a reference
16. You glance around nervously and hold on to your desk when you hear the phrase “flipped classroom”
17. You still have a modem (okay, really just kidding on that one – the only modems left out there are in museums right?)
18. You think MySpace is cool
19. You miss your typewriter
20. You think ‘gamification’ is what George W. Bush does when he plays Monopoly

If more than a few of these apply to you, you may be falling behind the times. So how do you keep up with developments in instructional and education technology without a ton of effort? Easy – just sign up to get blog posts from EmergingEdTech sent to your In Box! This is a quick and easy way to learn about new and existing approaches to the use of technology in teaching and learning.