Cramming vs. Disrupting- Where is Your Technology At?

Crammed (Where is the computer?) vs. Disrupting

I had to admit it but as I was catching up on some of our classroom reading this weekend, I really started to think about whether technology is cramming or disrupting my classroom. Is technology just one more thing I try to cram into my classroom or is it something that comes in and disrupts what is happening? As I was reading, several pictures popped into my mind. For cramming, I pictured the technology pushed back in the background among books, papers, filing cabinets, etc. and only taken out when the teacher feels it is an appropriate time to use it. For disrupting, I pictured the technology out in the open with the students and they are working together to get the task accomplished. Unfortunately, I feel my classrooms still fits into the first picture. What is the next step I need to take to get technology to be more "disrupting" in my classroom? How do I get students to make technology more disrupting in their lives other than just playing games, watching YouTube videos, and uploading photos to Facebook?

As I started to feel like I was doing not many things right, my thought drifted back to Chapter 2 in our Distrupting Class book. Being a little bit of a history buff, I enjoyed this chapter as it went through how our schools have changed to meet our society's needs. One phrase that sticks out on page 51 is "schools actually have been improving". As the history shows, it takes time for change to occur. I believe that most teachers and administrators want to improve and do what is best for our students. We just have to make sure we are continually trying to improve and to not get set in our ways!! We need to be willing to let technology to come in and let our classrooms be more student-centric. I found an article that gives a good example of a student-centric classroom but also sums up what we have been reading in our Disrupting Class book on Edutopia (it was written by the authors of the book and also where I found the pictures above). The article is called Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education is the Future. Student-Centric classrooms is the new job that society is asking from our schools. We now need to make sure that we are striving to meet our society's needs!!