WebedtecH

The summer holidays are quickly approaching here in the States and while our fancies turn to thoughts of vacations, beaches, cookouts, and other frivolity we should keep something in mind…a lesson taught to us each year we manage to forget by the time school begins again. The most effective tools we have are the ones simple to understand and implement. If you do not have to struggle with the operation of the tool, the completion of the task is more efficient and effective.

In the project management schools of thought no project is to begin without a mission statement and a charter. The concept of defining the “mission” of a technology tool for your students provides you the yardstick (or meter stick as warranted) to determine if the tool is delivering on it’s promises to you and your students. Will a word-processor help your students write better? Probably not. Will it make the reviewing and editing processes more efficient? That’s much closer to the possible result and a better measure of the tool and it’s classroom viability.

“If you only have a hammer everything looks like a nail,” is the common paraphrase of a true axiom. If you only have one or two tools you have no choice but to push those tools to their limits in pursuit of your project goals. I’m not saying you shouldn’t investigate other tools, improved systems, and newly developed technologies, but you want to avoid becoming the tool collector with 10 different word processors available but no resulting work.

Identify your specific goals, look for the tools that match those goals, and evaluate the tools on those merits. Keep it simple and your students will thank you. No one would drive a car if it had the controls of a 747 to do the same job. Those controls could come in handy someday, but as part of the educational process they just get in the way.

Kick back, relax, and think…”how can I make my student’s lives simpler?”

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