Thursday, February 28, 2008

Simplifying Technology for Better Technology Adoption and Integration

All thorough my 7 years in I.T. enabled education, i have observed that technologies are never delivered simplified to educatore (teachers, in particular). Even a tool/ technology expected to be used by a teacher is delivered in a 'hyped' way. Unless and Until technologies are explained in a simple manner to educatore, we cannot expect an adoption, leave aside easy adoption. A user ( teachers, in this case) should know how to get started with using the tool and that can only occur when users have understood it. So, simplification and not complication should be the key while introducing a new technology. I can relate an example - while conducting a training, i had to introduce 'Learning Objects' to a group of teachers. Rather than giving a technical definition for it, I explained it in a way that they could easily relate to. I told the group that any creation of theirs, be it a presentation, document, spreadsheet, animation, etc. is nothing but a learning object. We need to remember that the adopters need to feel comfortable with anything new being introduced to them. Lets simplify things for the teachers so they can harness the technology tools appropriately for their teaching-learning.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Technology Integration - No Stand-Alone Process

It's really hard to come back after a hiatus but i had to because one cannot just avoid technology. I am back with an interesting piece of my thoughts on technology integration process. Integrating technolgoy is not about picking a piece of software/ tool and start using it for the sake. what is required is a clear understanding about the purpose that the tool serve and also to use the tool appropriately. many a times the technology integration process fails/ flops because technology is treated as a domain outside our working/ active domain. Technology, as it exists, cannot be effective unless there is a seamless integration with the existing domain. When one sets to use technology in education, it just cannot be picking up a technolgoy piece and starting to use it to do some education related activity. The best way to capitalise on the power of technology is to pick up an activity from your domain and then seek an appropriate technology tool to achieve the desired output.

Also, technology integration is no stand-alone process. There cannot be an effective integration unless some creativity is applied. The creativity lies in identifying how to harness the tool appropriately. Creativity in integrating technology is all about using technology to simplify the things and facilitating the use of the tool to ensure proper usage.

I sense a bit of incoherency in my thoughts as it has been quite a while since i posted. I am sure to improve upon it in my next post.