Someone tweeted “Good teachers don’t need technology”. Like so many on Twitter, the tweet was sent and then quickly disappeared down the timeline and yet the phrase stuck in my mind.

It stuck in my mind because basically I don’t agree with it. The sentiment may have been well meant and witty but I do not think it is correct. All teachers need technology, whether they are good teachers or not. If I were asked to define what makes a good teacher, I very much doubt that I would include in my definition the fact that they do not use technology.

For me a good teacher will know that ‘learning’ is more important than ‘teaching’. A teacher can stand in front of the class and be as animated, as enthusiastic, as engaging etc. as they like but if the learners are not learning then the teacher is wasting their time.  Technology is a resource to support learning and a good teacher will welcome all such resources. A good teacher will select and match resources to fit the ability and levels of the learners. A good teacher will not reject a resource simply because it is a technology resource (though sadly a teacher may have to reject a resource if they do not have the correct technology to run the resource).

Technology is very much part of our society and, I think, of most societies in the 21st century. The levels and types of technology may vary from society to society but technology is still a part in present or future provision. A teacher who eschews all use of technology in their teaching is probably placing their teaching outside of its societal context; I’m not sure that that is a sign of a good teacher.

A corollary of ‘good teachers don’t need technology’ might be to say that only poor teachers use technology to support their teaching. That is a statement which I would find completely unsupportable and without any evidence.

For me a good teacher will make effective and extensive use of technology to support learning. A good teacher will be constantly evaluating the technology and will be seeking new ways of using technology in their teaching. A good teacher will observe how the learners use technology and will seek to harness such uses to support learning. A good teacher will recognise the uses of technology and will be prepared to make use of such technology.

A teacher in the 21st century who doesn’t feel that technology can help them in their teaching is probably not a good teacher.

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 image by Sean O’Sullivan

A recent study suggests that the use of interactive whiteboards (IWB) can improve learner achievement by 16%. This could be good news for those schools seeking to improve the number of learners achieving 5 A*-C grades grades, particularly the current crop of National Challenge Schools.

The study would suggest that by focussing upon the effective use of  a widely available piece of technology, schools and pupils can improve their performance.  This positive news, however, should be tempered a little because the study also shows that some inappropriate use of Interactive whiteboards may have a detrimental effect for some learners (see previous post). So, with appropriate staff training or CPD, schools could make better use of their IWBs and anticipate improved levels of achievement for their learners.

Training, CPD, of course, costs money but in this instance, it would seem to be money well spent. National Challenge Schools may already have budgets to help them improve the attainment levels of pupils. For all staff and schools, the upcoming ICT CPD for staff initiatives could help provide the necessary input.

So if you find yourself with an ICT CPD budget or an upcoming INSET day and you’re not sure what to do with it, spending part of it on improving the use of Interactive Whiteboards might be worthwhile.

For interactive whiteboard training in UK, you could do a lot worse than contact Danny http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/about/

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I discovered a great blog post at http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning2-0/10-ways-to-learn-in-2010/ which lists 10 new ways to learn. It includes the old one about using visual search engines; these have been around for a while and I womnder whether 2010 will be the year the visual search engine goes mainstream?

It also includes learning from wordclouds, these I thought were ‘old hat’ by now but I guess some people may not yet have come across them. Wordle for me is almost a waste of time, just because a term appears a lot in an article does not make it significant and, for me, a word cloud or tag cloud that is not hyperlinked is not very worthwhile.

Asking Questions, which is the third new way listed in the post, is hardly a new way at all. Asking questions is possibly the oldest method of learning known to man, so it is surprising that websites devoted to allowing people to ask questions have not become more popular. Then again maybe it is the silly answers that you often receive on such sites which has led to their demise.

Thinking visually and using mindmaps is again not new. What does appear to be new, however, is the ability to collaborate and share mindmaps online. This could become a great new tool for collaborative learning; it just remains to be seen whether people take to this approach. I have long been a user of mindmaps, myself, and I feel that such maps are personal; it is notr always easy for another person to interpret one person’s map, so I’m not yet sure whether collaborative maps would be of great use.

Hanging out with professors and watch documentaries are again hardly new ideas but the web is making these a lot easier than in the past.

It is very pleasing to see the growing popularity of TED talks and videos and this blog post lists a few others of a similar nature.

Using Twitter is well worth while in my experience so I wholeheartedly endorse this method of learning.

There are twoi more worthwhile tips for learning in 2010 which are mentioned in the blog post. I recommend that you pop over and have a fiull read of the post for yourself.

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