#Transforming Education through Creative Habits
#Teaching and Learning Challenges
#Playground Monitor Handbook
TECHplayground provides experiences for those who love to learn, play and explore
innovative, creative, and imaginative ways to improve teaching and learning with technology.
#Increase Engagement
#Globalize Your Classroom
#Offer Multiple Representations
#Maximize Communication
#Meet Students Where They Are
1) TECH: Transforming Education through Creative Habits
2) playground - informal learning environment, voluntary presence, fun, non-threatening, confidence-building, welcoming, inspiring
3) provide experiences - activities, tools, and opportunities that are not available elsewhere on campus. If an activity/training is provided by traditional means of IT or faculty support, it will not be duplicated in the TECHplayground.
4) those who love to learn, play and explore - TECHplayground will be open to College of Education faculty and students to engage in informal learning opportunities, through guided or independent exploration of a variety of the latest educational technologies and pedagogies.
5) innovative, creative and imaginative ways – The focus of TECHplayground is on cutting edge, innovative practices and tools. Participants will be encouraged to consider not only transforming their teaching and learning practices but engage in collaborative research as well.
6) improve teaching and learning with technology –
In the book Meaningful Learning with Technology (2012), authors Howland, Jonassen, and Marra set forth a set of assumptions that we whole-heartedly agree with:
• Technology is more than hardware. Technology consists also of the designs and the environments that engage learners. Technology can also consist of any reliable technique or method for engaging learning, such as cognitive-learning strategies and critical-thinking skills.
• Learning technologies can be any environment or definable set of activities that engage learners in active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative learning.
• Technologies are not conveyors or communicators of meaning. Nor should they prescribe and control all of the learner interactions.
• Technologies support meaningful learning when they fulfill a learning need — when interactions with technologies are learner initiated and learner controlled, and when interactions with the technologies are conceptually and intellectually engaging.
• Technologies should function as intellectual tool kits that enable learners to build more meaningful personal interpretations and representations of the world. These tool kits must support the intellectual functions that are required by a course of study.
• Learners and technologies should be intellectual partners, where the cognitive responsibility for performance is distributed to the partner that performs it better. (Howland, Jonassen, & Marra, 2012, p. 7)
The key word in the phrase “teaching and learning with technology” is with. Learning from technology assumes technology is a tool delivering curriculum to a passive learner. Software or a web site drives the activity by offering pre-programed sequences of material presentation. Learning about technology assumes technology is the curriculum. The focus is on the acquisition of technology skills related to a specific piece of hardware or software. For example, a user may need assistance on adding sound to a Powerpoint presentation, so they contact faculty support for a quick and specific answer. Transformation happens in a classroom when teaching and learning with technology is practiced. The focus in this environment is on learning processes or products that are made possible, are of higher quality, or become more efficient through the use of technology. Learners play an important role in selecting and applying the tools and resources that will best further their learning goals and challenge their higher order thinking skills.