ISTE Connects tweeted a link to an Innovation Excellence blog post on “15 Education Technologies to Check Out in 2013”
It was exciting to read some of the upcoming classroom technology coming in 2013. While some ideas seemed relevant and obvious, such as Study Blue, I felt that one idea seemed to be enabling students to learn on their terms. Celly is a text-messaging network that be created anywhere for whatever purposes. Teachers have used Celly for classroom purposes so that student can share their ideas in a communicating method they prefer. One comment that made me wonder if we’re going too far with the use of technology was that an observation taken by teachers was that students who don’t usually speak-up were messaging their responses using Celly. Although I acknowledge the benefits of a student finding their voice in any method, I wonder if students may supplement classroom participation with only online conversations; this may lead to students disregarding their time spent in the classroom. I don’t want to be a negative Nancy, but I do ask myself “When are we enabling and when are we helping the student to learn?”
{Original post date March 11, 2013}
{ed tech coffee talk} 
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