June 2006 — Features

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Teaching with Technology: The Secrets of Their Success

by Victor Rivero

SECRET #3: Ask not what curriculum is right for the technology; ask what technology is right for the curriculum.

You would have good reason to say that Will Richardson, the supervisor of Instructional Technology and Communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School (NJ), has been overexposed. He’s been featured in the New York Times and in a slew of magazine articles, as well as on Web sites—not to mention he has a new book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms (Corwin Press, 2006). But is it possible to give too much exposure to teaching with technology?

Richardson shares the spotlight in his blog. “This site is dedicated to discussions and reflections on the use of Web logs, wikis, RSS, audiocasts, and other read/write Web-related technologies in the K-12 realm, technologies that are transforming classrooms around the world,” he writes. (FYI: A wiki is a piece of server software for creation of Web page content that any site visitor can edit; Really Simple Syndication— RSS—gathers and presents to users the information they specify, such as news updates from a syndicate or entries in a blog.)

Stop talking about technology and instead talk about curriculum. Always start with the question, ‘So what do you want to do?’ not ‘What do you want to do with this technology?’
Will Richardson, Hunterdon Central Regional High School

The best way to understand these tools is also the simplest: Use them. Blogs, those plucky online journals, offer an easy way for technology learners to jump in. What blogs enable users to do is reverse the constant inflow of information—rather than only receiving data, users can send out material as well.

“All of our journalism students get their own Web logs at the beginning of the quarter,” says Richardson. “And they work with the teacher and connect with each other through those spaces. It’s a technology solution to the age-old problem of publishing, yes, but it’s a part of the curriculum now, just like paper used to be. We don’t do paper anymore in those classes. This is how student journalists at my school work. It’s their notebook, their portfolio, their archive, and their printing press—all in one.”

Richardson’s convictions about teaching with technology may surprise you. We should “stop thinking and talking about technology and instead think and talk about curriculum,” he says. “Always start with the question, ‘So what do you want to do?’ not ‘What do you want to do with this technology?’ At some point, the whole concept of educational technology will go away, and we’ll move to just plain-old education. I mean, do you ever hear the phrase business technology? Political technology? Journalism technology? It’s always struck me as strange that we separate the two things, when the reality is that if we’re using it well, the technology should be as seamless as chalk and pencils. We try to always start with a conversation about what teachers want to have happen, and then work from there to incorporate whatever tools might be most effective.”