I just watched a video by Kevin Starr (that I will attach below) about the impact of certain initiatives on the communities they are trying to help such as the One Laptop, Life Straw and the likes. Many of these “game changers” tend to miss the boat.
Likewise, educators and ed tech folks are trying to help engage their students when they introduce ideas like QR Codes or back channel chats as a learning/support tools. However, these initiatives tend to miss the boat as well because they dont look at the impact and don’t look at the numbers. Flipped classrooms on the other hand have some data to support that it is working. They are using technology to assist the learning process and it is working. There was a marked improvement after introducing the flipped classroom. But I have no idea how qr codes, back channel chats and fancy visual Twitter feeds could ever improve grades.
On the contrary, I think constantly trying to introduce new tech to the classroom can be counterproductive. It has to be well thought out and supported by data that matters!
Example. Recording the grading process as I alluded to in an earlier post is a great idea in theory. However, consider the impact (all the cons listed in this post) such as cost, limitations, time and now you have an initiative that could add more stress and work hours for a teacher – which is fine I guess if you have real data to support whether the ROI is worthwhile or not
Just my morning IT babble :) Do with what you will