EdTechTeacher Summit Boston 2017

Few empirical studies may be more detrimental to advancements of effective technology use in K-12 education than the Mueller and Oppenheimer (2014) as well as Carter, Greenberg, and Walker (2016) reports. Both empirical studies assert that students in lecture-style courses perform worse on assessments when allowed to use technology in the classroom. However, neither study mentions any instruction provided to students to help them capitalize on the tools in front of them! Too often, educators project their own reading and note taking habits onto their students, applying paper-based strategies to digital texts. However, what if we actually considered digital reading and note taking as a completely new task? When students can harness the power of tagging, searching, and sharing as a new way to approach how they interact with course content, they will be able to ask better questions, build stronger connections, and engage in deeper inquiry. Ultimately, students need to not only be able to search for knowledge across disparate sources, but also within their own brains.