Educational Technology: Evaluation before Integration

Technology has come a long way and continues to be developed and expanded rapidly. As teachers, we must not only learn how to use the technology available to us, but also learn how to use it with our students. With so much technology available in the world, how can one choose what to use and what not to use? That is where teachers must learn how to evaluate the technology available to them. As a teacher, I would never use a type of educational technology without becoming acquainted with it. I need to know the ups, downs, in, and outs for every type of educational technology I choose to use in my classroom and with my students. Now that does not mean that I need to be an expert on the technology (although that would be a plus!), but it does mean that I should be aware of what the technology has to offer, the quality of the technology, and the possible positive and negative points regarding the use of the technology in my classroom and with my students.

I am, of course, not the only one who will be using educational technology in my classroom. My students will be using educational technology throughout each school year. They will be doing research and creating projects with technology, and they should know how to evaluate that technology as well. Both students and teachers can and should evaluate the technology available to them. Shelly et al (2008) suggest that teachers and students use rubrics to evaluate educational technology. Rubrics used should be specific to the type of technology being evaluated, whether it be hardware, software or websites on the Internet.

In my own experience, using rubrics like those found in Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom (Shelly et al, 2008), can be extremely useful for evaluating software and websites. The website rubric specifically lets the reader know what exactly they should be looking for in a website, such as authority, affiliation, purpose, objectivity, content, audience, and more. They make an evaluation process that could take hours or days take much less time, and let's face it, as teachers, we need all the time we can get. I look forward to using rubrics to evaluate the technology sources I choose to use in my future classroom and to teaching my students how to evaluate educational technology in my future classroom.

Reference:
Shelly, G., Cashman, T., Gunter, R., & Gunter, G. (2008). Teachers discovering computers: integrating technology and digital media in the classroom (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Course Technology.