Best Practices

Utilizing Best Practices in Instructional  Technology by Kristy S. Patterson

Kristy is saying what we have been thinking, saying and desiring to implement for a long time.

Three Items I found useful, Tools and Technique & Target

“Focus on student learning.  Technology should be seen as just a tool, not as a curriculum in itself. The instructional technologist should partner with teachers to incorporate technology tools into the existing lesson plans that teachers are already using.”

“Break away from PC-based software applications.  The concept of “cloud computing” was a fairly new one to me, but it makes a great deal of sense. Instead of focusing on proprietary Microsoft programs as we have done in the past, Alan put forth the idea of using applications such as Google Docs, Open Office, and Zoho.”

“Teach concepts, not skills.  While it’s pretty easy to instruct users how to use specific software applications, that practice is not as useful to them as teaching them the concepts of how to use technology tools in general. With the rapid pace of change in the world of technology, learning to use Microsoft FrontPage will be mostly irrelevant five years from now, but the concept of how to design a website is something that should remain useful.”