How I Make Ed Tech Work for Me

From The Educators 

The content of this US News and World Report article on education technology in higher education is great.

Sadly the headline is not. 
Professors Grow Weary of Idea That Technology Can Save Higher Ed
Really?
Using the word "save" is inappropriate. Sure, higher ed in the US might have a cost control problem and a few other bugs, but suggesting that the whole system needs salvaging is way off base.

That said, I like this kind of critical coverage of ed tech in the university.

I think there's a lot of "silver bullet talk" when people discuss ed tech. But it's not enough to purchase new technologies or software.

[...] professors say they don’t have enough help to use this technology effectively, haven’t seen results from it, and fear that the cost savings administrators keep insisting that technology will bring could mean their own careers are on the line.

I've had some great successes using technology in my composition courses, but I'm always in hacking mode - using a tool in a way that is slightly different than what the designers intended.

I draw up a draft of my course before I ever look at my institution's ed tech toolkit. Once I have goals and student/teacher workloads sorted, I go to see if there are any tech tools that could help me meet my goals more efficiently or add a new dimension to what I had planned. Often there are.

But that order of events is crucial.

I do not open the course management software until after I have my term planned out. I use the software to get my students where I want them to go. I don't let the software frame the tasks or the objectives.

The problem a lot of people are running into is simple.

One of the most common complaints from faculty is that much of this technology creates more work, not less, a 2012 survey of 42 professors at three large universities by David R. Johnson, a sociology researcher at Rice University, found.

If that is happening, then you're doing it wrong. The goals and workloads need to be decided before we introduce learning technologies.

If we want efficiency, quality, and access, then we need to make those goal clear at the outset, only then should we explore what kind of technologies we can bring into our classrooms.