Educational Technology Assumptions
I’ve taught adult Educational Technology for about two years. The mistakes I’ve made have had to do with assuming that my students know how to do certain tasks on the computer. I found out the first week that I should not even assume word processing skills.
I start with typing first. I make sure that everyone knows how to type properly using the home row. My students will not leave the class hunting and pecking. I don’t care how fast they are at hunting and pecking–I won’t allow it in my class. While we don’t work on proper typing for the entire semester, we work on it the first day. I give students the information they need to practice at home or at school as the case may be. Homework for those without proper typing skills is a minimum of thirty minutes a day of proper typing practice. If that means they have to kick their children off the computer for thirty minutes a day, so be it. Children get much more exposure to computers on a daily basis than adults anyway. Adults with little experience must covet and protect their time on the computer with all the tenacity of a tiger that hasn’t eaten in a week. After typing we move on to word processing.
In the past, whether with high school students or adults, I’ve assumed that they know what I expect on a paper as far as formatting is concerned as well. Yep, I made that mistake early and often too. I try to be as specific as possible with them now.
For essay instructions teachers need to be crystal clear. Nothing should be left open for questioning. Teachers need to be explicit about font, format, size, margins. Teachers have to make their preferences known. Will you allow spaces between paragraphs? Double or single spaced? For the length, are you going to go by word count or number of pages? Are students going to print it out and give you a hard copy? Are they going to e-mail it to you? Do they know how to e-mail it to you if you have Word 2003 at work and they have Word 2007 at home?
I’ve learned that I cannot assume student knowledge in Educational Technology–not even typing.
Some questions:
- What has been your experience teaching or learning on the computer?
- For those who teach and work in Educational Technology what do you focus on for advanced students? What do you focus on for those who lack basic skills?
I’ve found in teaching adults basic skills in educational technology that they simply want to be able to perform everyday tasks. For some it’s being able to share pictures with their loved ones. For others it’s polishing up their resume and filling out online applications. With online applications and online classified ads being the reality today adults can’t afford not to be web and technology savvy.
Related posts:
What I do to make sure students have the basic knowledge of a program or software they are going to be using is offer the first day as a practice day. This day is when I introduce/reintroduce the program and they have a class period to familiarize themselves with some basic commands/skills they will need to know (usually 5-10). Encouraging them to make mistakes and resolve them, being able to problem solve is what I find is a true sign of student understanding. Teaching middle school students I have learned never to assume they have certain skills. Would a teacher assume all students can read at the same level? So why make assumptions with technology/comuputer skills. Great post TIC.
[...] Edge of Education Carnival in a row, TIC presents a great post. This time it’s about theEducational Technology Assumptionswe all make. His article is posted at Technology In [...]