SAMR Theory of Technology Adoption
When looking to bring new technologies into the classroom, it is important to think about if the technology will enhance your students learning. By using the SAMR theory, which stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition, you can better evaluate if a new technology is the right fit for your classroom. If the technology that you are planning to bring to the classroom is replacing another media without any task redesign, it may not be the most useful. Ideally, when bringing new tech into the class, the media should allow for the students to expand and express their learning in new creative ways. However, this does not mean that replacing a pen and paper with a computer to write an essay is not beneficial. It is a useful tool to help students who struggle with hand written work. It just means that when introducing new tech, it is important for it to open opportunities for students to expand and create beyond what they first believed was achievable. I wonder perhaps, if using this model, some teachers out there may find some technologies in their classroom are not as supportive to enhancing their students learning as they thought.
Low Tech VS High Tech
There are many different way to have student complete similar educational tasks and it is important to choose the right medium for your classroom. Today, we looked at Sketchnote, a low tech media, and Canva, a high tech media. We discussed the uses and what grades they would work best. I think that they are both great and useful in different ways. I feel that Sketchnoting is informal in comparison to Canva which is a formal and creative way to express information. You could use Sketchnoting in a younger grade level because it does not require your students to have a laptop, and Canva could be a difficult media to teach to younger students. For older grade levels, you could have them use Sketchnoting to plan out an infographic and then create the final copy using Canva. Therefore, I feel that Sketchnoting could be used in any grade level I end up teaching while Canva would be best be used in an older classroom where they have access to computers and their digital literacy is greater.
Here is an example of an infographic created on Canva and Sketchnoting:
