The combination of flexibility, pedagogical approaches and technology

Let's start with a real-life example this time. My father is a teacher in the upper grades of primary school for more than 25 years. Last week he came home from work and was really pissed off. Of course I asked him ‘what’s up dad?’ Then he told me that the beamer in his classroom was broken and it would take a whole week to fix it. He was really frustrated about the fact that he has to work one week with just a blackboard instead of his digital whiteboard. I told him that he is really spoiled in my opinion, because the first 23 years of his career he had always worked with just a blackboard..

So, my point is: the use of technology in education can be very useful for the learners, but what about the older teachers? It costs a lot of time to get the older teachers familiar with all these kinds of technology. Besides this ‘negative’ point of using technology in pedagogical approaches I am very positive about it. The fact that my dad is really pissed off about the fact that he cannot work with his high-technological whiteboard says enough. Even the ‘older’ teachers like it to work with technology, what is really important for a successful implementation of technology in education.

Off course education is about the learners, they have to learn something. Nowadays technology is used everywhere, all over the world, so it has to integrate in to the schools. Teachers must get familiar with it, because it’s better for the learners. Related to the example of my father, flexibility is also an important aspect for teachers. In this case he has to be flexible and find another way to teach his learners.

After listening to some lectures, writing some posts and reading some other blogs so far, I think this subject really interests me. There are so many pedagogical approaches and even more ways to use technology in it. The combinations of these aspects will lead to many ways of flexibility. I think this must and also will trigger the teachers to create innovative ways to teach their pupils, because they have lots of options instead of just the traditional learning approach where the teacher is telling the pupils the information. I think that handling with all the possible opportunities will lead to a professional development of all the teachers..