This Tech or That Tech? That is the Question...

For this post I have decided to focus on "How do we decide which technologies to use?" because this is a big question for me.

When I think of which technologies out of all those we've heard presentations about this last week, I have two feelings: excitement, and then overwhelm-ness. Excitement because I want to use them all! They are all so cool and seem like great additions to my classroom teaching processes. After all, isn't that why I'm in the tech strand? I would love to have a class blog. I would love to use nearpod, I would love to incorporate all the things we saw and heard. However, that leads to feelings of being overwhelmed trying to learn it all.

I have come to a few conclusions. First, I don't have to memorize them before I use them; and second, I don't have to incorporate them all right now either. I already use YouTube quite a bit in my classroom. There are tons of great little clips that I show my class (plus we watch things like KidHistory for fun:)). I am definitely going to use Remind. I'm pretty sure I am going to start a class blog. And of course we will be learning all the features and etiquette of email. But everything else will have to be incorporated as I can. Heck, I think I might even make a power point or two! (Keeping in mind Dr. Sowder's rules of ppt, of course. There's nothing worse than a boring ppt. Well, except district meetings, perhaps...)

So, how do we decide which tech to use? I think whatever seems to come naturally and fit in to what we are doing, without "broadcasting too many channels." I am "friends" on FB with a page called Teaching Resources, and today one of the posts led to this blog: http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/too-many-channels/. (Ok, I know there is a way for me to make that a hyperlink, but I don't know how to do that yet...) It was mainly about passing out a paper or giving an assignment, and then yapping on for a while and then being upset that the kids didn't follow the directions. However, reading the post made me think of having too many technologies, or anything else for that matter, going on in the classroom. I guess it all goes back to Bloom's Taxonomy, updated. What am I really trying to get out of this? Is it encouraging HOTS, or is it just fluff? Things to think about.