Guest post by Sandra Kuipers

Free educational technology is not necessarily open educational technology and failing to make this distinction impacts education on an individual and global level. Online resources and technologies present attractive opportunities to infuse learning with digital media and content. However, these resources are not created equally: they may be either open, provided with a license that enables remixing and sharing; or they may be proprietary, provided with a license that protects and restricts their use (Lessig, 2009; Wiley, 2014). This inequality poses a critical issue in education technology (EdTech). Crucially, these licenses can easily become confused or overlooked when the resources themselves are free. In this critical reflective paper, I confront what the ambiguity between free and open means for education and what it costs. Beyond monetary costs, free educational resources and technology accrue opportunity costs, which need to be considered each time educators choose between free and open EdTech.

Free vs. Open

The difference between paid and free is a lot clearer than the difference between free and open. Educators and institutions are acutely aware of how much money they’re spending on their technology and resources. However, the difference is not as clear when they choose between free and open EdTech. In my inquiry into this topic, I realized this distinction was often neglected or misunderstood, which presented a compelling area to investigate further. My aim is not to argue the case between paid and open EdTech, which is well stated (Blomgren, 2018; Olcott, 2012; Wiley, Bliss, & McEwen, 2014), but rather to critically examine the resources and technology which are already free.

As an open source developer considering the topic of free EdTech, I found myself asking: Why do creators choose to make something free, yet not open? Why not take that extra step? I was curious to consider the implications of EdTech that is free and closed, versus EdTech that is free and open. Throughout this inquiry, when I use the term free EdTech, I am referring to resources and technology that are free yet proprietary: those that are protected under a restrictive license. When I use the term open EdTech, I am referring to resources and technology which are both free and open: those that are provided with a permissive license. These include the Creative Commons license (Lessig, 2009) or one of the many open source licenses, including the GNU General Public License or MIT License (Open Source Initiative, n.d.). This distinction is critical to establish, as my inquiry has revealed a high degree of ambiguity in this topic.

Free has many meanings. In the software world, this ambiguity is famously characterized through Stallman’s (2002) slogan: “Think free as in free speech, not free beer” (p. 133). This statement highlights the difference in English between giving something away “for free” (gratis) and providing something “with little or no restriction” (libre) (“Gratis versus libre,” n.d.). In the copyright world, one meaning does not necessarily imply the other: something can be given away for free yet still retain a proprietary license (Lessig, 2009). Stallman’s analogy conveys the misconceptions surrounding the word free and how these misconceptions can affect the licenses that creators choose to apply to their work. Although Stallman’s statement was aimed at software development, the ambiguity of the word free also impacts education. Educators and institutions continuously choose between which technologies to use and invest in (Weller, 2018), and each decision represents an opportunity cost.

Opportunity Costs

The opportunity cost of choosing free EdTech over open EdTech may be difficult to assess but is nonetheless vital for educators to consider. Opportunity cost, a term used in economics, refers to “the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen” (“Opportunity Cost”, n.d.). Although primarily used in an economic context, opportunity cost considers any potential loss when making a decision. When both alternatives are already free, as in the case of free versus open EdTech, the consideration entails many hidden non-monetary costs. Assessing these costs requires looking at the “the bigger picture of educational technology” (Selwyn, 2010, p. 70), from the micro-level of individuals to the macro-level of globalization. In my inquiry, I’ve explored these opportunity costs on an individual, local, and global level.

Individual Costs

Free EdTech may not have a monetary cost, but it often offsets its expense through other means. Student data may be collected, from clicks and page views to individual metrics of aptitude and behaviour, and critics of online privacy are wise to question what is being done with this data (Polonetsky & Tene, 2014). For example, Google Classroom is a free educational platform, provided by the search-engine giant under the banner of its Google Apps for Education program. Lindh and Nolan (2016) warn that concealed behind Google’s offering of a “free public service” is a business model for online marketing. Through this business model, “Google’s information on users’ behaviour on the web is collected through the DoubleClick server and is thereafter packaged and sold to advertisers” (p. 647). Lindh and Nolan argue that educational institutions assuming that Google is providing them with a free service have been severely misled. “It is, in fact Google that has access to free digital labour, as people through their everyday practices produce the commodity that creates Google’s economic wealth” (p. 647). In the crucial and often alarming topic of data privacy and surveillance, free EdTech is not the same as open EdTech. An individual’s privacy is a critical consideration among the unseen opportunity costs of free EdTech.

Local Costs

Resources that are not open remain fixed in the original context in which they were created. Blomgren (2018) notes how publishers and content creators may “attempt to provide accurate content” (p. 61), yet they cannot possibly contextualize learning materials for every local area or culture. The result is that the context of proprietary resources is either highly generalized or relates to a specific instance that may not be relevant to local learners. Localizing and contextualizing learning is an essential part of how learners connect and engage with new topics: curriculum becomes more relevant when it relates to a student’s local area or current events (Davis, Sumara, & Luce-Kapler, 2000). Blomgren suggests that the “the need for place-based learning highlights how the older model of educational [resources] has become challenged by the [Open Educational Resource (OER)] movement” (p. 62). Free educational resources may help a teacher build their lesson plans, but unless those resources are also open, they do not provide the opportunity to localize or contextualize those lessons.

Global Costs

Free EdTech is often presented under the banner of altruism but may ultimately fall into the trap of solutionism. Morozov (2013) warns that humans are increasingly looking at technological solutions for problems that are necessarily social and cultural. This technological solutionism often doesn’t address the root of a problem and is more than likely to have unintended consequences. In my critical inquiry, I looked at Khan Academy, which promotes a “mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere” (Khan Academy, 2018, para. 2). This platform provides visually appealing educational resources, including videos, step-by-step tutorials, and discussion boards. However, looking towards the goal of democratizing education, Hansen and Reich (2015) found that free learning resources do not necessarily “benefit the disadvantaged” or “decrease gaps between rich and poor” (p. 1245). Presenting free EdTech as a solution to global education reduces the issue to a matter of cost, which research into the digital divide has found is not the only consideration.

Several of the free EdTech platforms available online are products of educational philanthropy, which raises questions of motives and social implications. Regan and Steeves (2019) examine the impact of technology company foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. They cautioned that EdTech offered by these foundations may come at a social cost, including a weakening sense of “the public in public education”, and desensitization of youth to the “surveillance state” (para 3). While free and attractive to educators, these initiatives aim to use big data and learning analytics as a solutionist approach to issues in education. “Rather than supporting smaller class sizes and better-paid teachers, elites such as the Gates and Walton foundations are advancing ideas linked to measurement, testing and performance” (Polonetsky & Tene, 2014, p. 19). EdTech from billionaire philanthropists may be offered for free, but it is not necessarily open. Rather than open EdTech authored by and representative of the many, this free EdTech represent the motives and perceived solutions of the few.

Read and Write Culture

The ability to copy one another is central to the human learning process. In Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony, Laland (2018) identifies copying as a primary mechanism of cultural evolution. Human culture evolved by watching, learning, repeating, and improving on each other’s actions. In considering the implications between free and open, I wondered: What happens to learning when we prevent this essential process of mimicking and modifying creative works? The choice between free and open EdTech revolves around the type of culture educators want to foster: a read-only culture, or a read-and-write culture of iterative and generative creation (Lessig, 2008). Openness is an invitation: it offers the potential to participate in the evolution of human knowledge and creativity.

Educators need not be passive consumers of the content they teach. Jenkins (2009) illustrates how the internet offers the potential of a “participatory culture,” particularly in education. Yet, this potential relies on the inherent rights and affordances of its digital infrastructure. In Free Culture, Lessig (2004) explores how copyrights and patents are a relatively recent invention and tend to benefit corporations over individuals. For much of human history, Lessig explains, creative works were not controlled by the law. Inventors and artists throughout history were free to imitate and copy each other: and they did. Educators, as participants in the continuum of human culture, need to be acutely aware of copyright and licensing issues. If educators come to see free EdTech as “good enough,” then they have lost a freedom truly essential to human culture.

Realizing Potential

An opportunity cost, however, does not matter if the opportunity itself would be wasted. In my inquiry into the issue of free versus open EdTech, it was easy to fall into the trap of open determinism. Open licensing offers potential and potential alone. Adding an open license to resources, software, and technology does not automatically solve issues of relevancy, diversity, privacy, and contextualization (Blomgren, 2018; Olcott, 2012). The difference between free and open EdTech is moot if the potential isn’t realized.

Education can benefit from openness. However, as an advocate of open source and open culture, I realized I need to temper my enthusiasm with a pragmatic perspective. Open Educational Resources (OER), for example, face many challenges, including discovery, sustainability, quality, and localization (Wiley, Bliss, & McEwen, 2014). Olcott (2012) reminds educators and researchers that “there is no silver bullet solution to the “open” road ahead. OER are not a panacea for resolving all the issues in a global society or in the higher education sector” (p. 289). As advocates of openness present open licensing as a social good, they too are in danger of perpetuating “technological solutionism” (Morozov, 2013). The potential that open licensing offers needs to be met with the intention and empowerment to utilize it. The cost of free EdTech may be lost potential, but for potential to matter in the first place, it must be realized.

Final Thoughts

Both the concept of free and the concept of open are hard to define. My inquiry into this topic began with a look at the ambiguity of the word free. However, the concept of open suffers from a similar ambiguity. Cronin (2017) notes that “open education narratives and initiatives have evolved in different contexts, with differing priorities” (p. 16). As an open source developer, I realize I can often be blind to how confusing the concept of open can be for the uninitiated. Cronin explains that open is used to describe everything from resources, to teaching practices, to technologies, as well as to refer to the values of open culture itself. This wide “umbrella term” for open (Weller, 2104) may make it difficult for educators to understand the specific implications of using open technology and open resources. Watters (2014) also “cautions that while such multivalence can be a strength, it is also a weakness when the term becomes so widely applied that it is rendered meaningless” (Watters, as cited in Cronin, 2017, p. 16).

Communicating the opportunity cost of free versus open EdTech is an issue of both awareness and articulation. In 2007, the Cape Town Open Educational Declaration boldly declared that, through open initiatives, “educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge” (para 1). However, in the follow-up 10th Anniversary project in 2017, they recognize that there remains much work to be done to realize this vision. “The challenge is not in reaching enough people, but rather in articulating the meaning and value of open education in a way that resonates with mainstream audiences” (Cape Town Open Educational Declaration 10th Anniversary, 2017, p. 4). To help teach educators the opportunity cost of free versus open EdTech, advocates of openness first need to articulate what open education actually means.

When educators see the word free, they need to be encouraged to look closer and dig deeper. Free is not the enemy of open, but it can easily overshadow it. Blomgren (2018) suggests that “rather than simply being for or against [Open Educational Resources], educators at all levels need to be deeply aware of the various and connected implications of the OER transformation” (p. 65). This awareness begins with an intentional decision for educators to learn about open EdTech: to look beyond issues of free or paid, and critically assess the underlying licenses of the technologies they use.

The cost of free EdTech is lost potential: the difference between a read-only culture and a read-and-write culture. If educators wish to create participatory, contextually relevant learning opportunities for their students, they need to be aware of which culture they’re choosing to foster. As stewards of human knowledge and creativity, educators need to be aware of copyright and licensing issues. However, awareness alone is not enough. Educators and advocates of openness need to take action. We have work to do. Realizing the potential of open licensing requires a commitment to articulating the value of open culture, as well as empowering others to reuse, remix, and redistribute educational technology.

References

Blomgren, C. (2018). OER awareness and use: The affinity between higher education and K-12. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i2.3431

Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007). Retrieved June 1, 2020, from https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration

Cape Town Open Education Declaration 10th Anniversary (2017). Retrieved June 1, 2020, from https://www.capetowndeclaration.org/cpt10/

Davis, B., Sumara, D. J., & Luce-Kapler, R. (2000). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in complex times. Routledge.

Gratis versus libre. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved April 22, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre

Hansen, J. D., & Reich, J. (2015). Democratizing education: Examining access and usage patterns in massive open online courses. Science, 350(6265), 1245–1248. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aab3782

Khan Academy. (2018). Khan Academy Annual Report 2018. Retrieved April 18, 2020, from https://khanacademyannualreport.org

Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MIT Press.

Laland, K. N. (2018). Darwin’s Unfinished Symphony: How culture made the human mind. Princeton University Press.

Lessig, L. (2004). Free Culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity. New York: Penguin Press. Retrieved from http://www.free-culture.cc/

Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. New York: Penguin Press. Retrieved from https://remix.lessig.org/

Lessig, L. (2009). Code: And other laws of cyberspace. ReadHowYouWant.com. Retrieved from http://codev2.cc/

Lindh, M., & Nolin, J. (2016). Information we collect: Surveillance and privacy in the implementation of Google Apps for Education. European Educational Research Journal, 15(6), 644–663. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474904116654917

Morozov, E. (2013). To save everything, click here: The folly of technological solutionism. PublicAffairs.

Olcott, D. (2012). OER perspectives: Emerging issues for universities. Distance Education, 33(2), 283–290. https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2012.700561

Open Source Initiative. (n.d.). Licenses & standards: About open source licenses. Retrieved June 3, 2020 from https://opensource.org/licenses

Opportunity Cost. (n.d.). In Lexico Dictionary by Oxford. Retrieved from https://www.lexico.com/definition/opportunity_cost

Polonetsky, J., & Tene, O. (2014). Who is reading whom now: Privacy in education from books to MOOCs. Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law, 11(4), 921–935. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2507044

Regan, P. M., & Steeves, V. (2019). Education, privacy, and big data algorithms: Taking the persons out of personalized learning. First Monday. Retrieved from https://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/10094

Selwyn, N. (2010). Looking beyond learning: Notes towards the critical study of educational technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26(1), 65–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2729.2009.00338.x

Stallman, R. (2002). Free Software, Free Society: Selected essays of Richard M. Stallman. GNU Press: Boston MA, USA. Retrieved from http://www.gnu.org/doc/Press-use/fsfs3-hardcover.pdf

Weller, M. (2018). Twenty years of EdTech. EDUCAUSE Review, 53(4), 34–48. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/7/twenty-years-of-EdTech

Wiley, D. (2014). Defining the “open” in open content and open educational resources. Retrieved April 25, 2020, from http://opencontent.org/definition/

Wiley, D. A., Bliss, T. J., & McEwen, M. (2014). Open educational resources: A review of the literature. Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology: Fourth Edition, 781–789. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3185-5

Credits

Copyright icon from Wikimedia Commons, under Public Domain

It was pointed out to me last night (not unfairly, I confess), that whilst I have a clear model in my mind of what great classroom integration of technology looks like, perhaps I have not articulated this clearly to those I work with. In the past my approach has been to drip feed ideas to various people within school, hoping to find fertile ground for certain approaches. In addition, PD sessions have been used to show a variety of uses for technology. In retrospect, such learning moments have been, for a variety of reasons, too dispersed, infrequent and ad hoc to perhaps make a complete picture. This post, then, is an attempt to shed some light on the approach I would like to see taken in integrating technology into the classroom.

Any technological advance provides us potential new ways to approach learning, and educators have a long history of adopting new technologies with the aim of improving what we do. However, most of the integration we see does not fundamentally change education, but rather provides a more complex, expensive way of doing the same old thing. A classic example of this is using a 1:1 laptop program to have students research and type papers, which provides very little of interest that could not be achieved with pen and paper in a library. What we need are integrations that allow students to do new, powerful things, not possible or practical without the technology being added in. This is the heart of the very popular SAMR model, which promotes Redefinition over Substitution (with Augmentation and Modification as a middle ground).

So, what does this empowering, transformative practice look like when implemented in the classroom? Whilst there is no one approach, some of the entries below might give an idea of the range and scope of what is possible. Each idea links to skills and conteps currently taught in many schools, and accepted as being positive, useful things to know and do. As a side note, these ideas are grouped into subjects, not because this is the best way to teach, but because most teachers are subject teachers, and approach their work from that perspective. There is no reason ideas listed in one subject area cannot be applied to other subject areas.

• English
  • Persuasion & Publishing – ask students to come up with a literary product that they would like to create, produce and sell (for example, a coffee table book on Minecraft). Using graphic editing software (e.g. Acorn, GIMP, Photoshop), put together some mock up pages. Using collaborative writing software (e.g. Google Drive) to write up a blurb, sales pitch and press release. Create a crowdfunding campaign (e.g. Kickstarter) to raise the money necessary to have the book printed, and take this to your community and beyond (using Twitter, Facebook). Create and publish the book. Place the book in your library.
  • Creative, Non-Linear Writing – expand your students’s view of what creative writing can be by using Google Forms to build an open-ended text that can be read in different ways. See Google Forms Choose Your Own Adventure for an example.
  • Rich Writing – use Storify to enable students to create writing with rich multimedia elements, such as Twitter and YouTube embeds. This might be used to create a fictional story, based on real world events.
  • Graphic Representation – take a scene from a story or play, and ask students to represent it with a rich graphic mashup, using graphic editing software (e.g. Acorn, GIMP) and Creative Commons media. This means that students need to decode the text, and then re-encode it into a new format, which promotes questioning and assists with comprehension.
  • Book As Movie Trailer – similar to the graphic representation idea above, ask students to plan, film and produce a cinematic trailer for a movie version of a book.
  • Emoji Story – ask students to write a story using mainly (or only) emoji to express a narrative, and see how different students interpret it. Or, work in reverse and convert an existing text (e.g. Hamlet) into emoji.
• Mathematics
  • QR Code Maths Hunt – find locations around school where mathematical concepts (angles, shapes, curves, patterns) can be observed, and label these with QR codes that can be scanned by students. Once scanned, the QR codes point students to websites or videos explaining the concept that can be observed, introducing new mathematical concepts in a physical way.
  • Hands On Geometry – use the Scratch programming environment to ask students to draw shapes (e.g. square, pentagon). Ask students to generalise their work into a program that asks users how many sides a shape should have, and then draws the shape. This helps take knowledge of specific shapes, and draws out general knowledge that connects a range shapes.
  • Math Memes – mathematicians are funny people, and the Internet is full of funny maths jokes that can be used to introduce subjects, or sow confusion and debate (example 1, example 2, example 3)
  • Write Your Own Textbook – rather than just following a textbook, have students create amd publish their own, with examples, questions and answers. Lay it out with desktop publishing software (e.g. Scribus, iBooks Author) and share it online.
  • Where In The World – find a picture of somewhere in your county/state/district that is distinct, but unknown to students. Ask them to use Google Maps, and visual clues from the image to triangulate and discover the location of the image. See Where In Hong Kong for an example of this process.
• Science
  • Wikipedia Discussion – ask students to find a contentious scientific topic (e.g. evolution), and look at its page on Wikipedia. Look at the Talk page associated article to see some of the discussion and debate that goes on behind the scenes in presenting this idea. Some pages are protected? Why? How does scientific knowledge evolve over time?
  • Experiment Curator – create a website using a free online tool (e.g. WordPress, Wix, Weebly) to set up a site where students share and curate information on scientific experiments. This site can cross year groups and classes. Experiments can be organised by complexity, area of science, experimental approach, etc. This forces students to look at experiments from a broader point of view. Share the website online, invite other schools to participate.
  • YouTube Channel – extending on the experiment curation idea above, have students film experiments, adding subtitle instructions, and student dialogue explaining what is happening. Create a YouTube channel of the collected experiments. This encourages students to more deeply understand what they are doing, so that they can explain it back to others.
  • Arduino Electronics – use an Arduino board and sensor kit to take measurements of the environment, and store the data for further analysis. Get to know local weather and climate, and compare it to reading from other sources and other locations.
• Humanities
  • Global Issues Board Game – choose a global issue (e.g. climate change), and ask students to produce a board game to simulate the issue, allowing others to learn about it through play. Use Creative Commons media and free iconography to produce something polished and legally saleable. Create some sets, and sell them to the community and other schools. Use money raised to fund change via micro finance (see below). As an example of a game made in this way, look at Producers & Consumers.
  • Micro Finance – taking a small amount of money, ask students to use micro finance (e.g. via Kiva) to fund small scale change in developing countries. Use a collaborative spreadsheet (e.g. Google Sheets) to track loans, repayments and the changes facilitated. Discuss whether micro finance is a sustainable, feasible alternative to humanitarian aid.
  • Wikipedia Editing – find a Wikipedia entry on a relevant topic (e.g. erosion), read it, and see if there are any ways it can be improved or contributed to (e.g. fixing errors, improving text, adding sources, taking and uploading images).
  • Current Affairs Feed – use a feed aggregator or automated online news paper (e.g. Paperli) to create a school feed detailing current affairs and interest news. Share it with students and staff for use across school.
  • Local-Global Sharing – using Twitter or the web, find another classroom, somewhere else in the world, that you can connect to. Have students on both sides prepare ideas and information to share about their local geography, history, culture. Then schedule a video call (e.g. Skype, Hangouts) for students to both share their own local knowledge, and learn about someone else’s area.
  • Public Domain Historical Archive – copyright is limited by time, and old media eventually becomes part of the public domain, free for anyone to use. Ask students to choose a historical topic, and mine the internet for public domain archive material around this topic. Build a website using a free online tool (e.g. WordPress, Wix, Weebly), to bring together a range of such topics, for use by other schools or the local community.
  • Data Exploration – the World Bank, WHO and other organisations publish large data sets, ripe for authentic learning. Often these are hard to use, due to their size and structure. Make this data accessible and explorable to students with Google’s Public Data Explorer. Ask students to spot patterns in the world, and then research and unpack these patterns to extract lessons about the world.
• Visual & Performing Arts
  • Meme Studies – unknown to most adults, our students are well versed in Internet memes, which shape and define most of their popular culture. The more visual of these memes provide rich and relevant ground for artistic analysis. Are these works art? Where do they come from? What influences them? How do they spread? How is one piece used to derive another (e.g. this lead to this which lead to this which lead to this)?
  • Collaborative Play Writing – using an online survey tool (e.g. Google Forms, Survey Monkey) ask members of your community to create characters for a play. Ask students to take this diverse cast, and build a narrative around it.
  • Automated Set Design – using Arduino, cardboard and tape, have students produce a model set with automated lights, curtains, sensor-driven cues, etc.
  • Classroom Design – introduce students to contemporary space design (e.g. Make Space), and ask them to use a design tool (e.g. Homestyler, Sketchup) to redesign their current learning space to their liking. Use a 3D printer (if you have one or can access one) to print a model. Have students present to school administrators to obtain funds to put their ideas into action.
  • Premature Ageing – use graphic design and aging software to have students consider their future selves, and what they might grow to become. For an example see Half-Old Portrait.
• Physical Education
  • Fitness Data – use fitness trackers (e.g. FitBit, Polar) to help students gather data about themselves and the way they live. Bring this real data into lessons to ask students to consider their lifestyle, their fitness aims, and how they might develop.
  • Video Analysis – use ubiquitous cameras (phones, laptops, tablets) to have students capture athletic performance (e.g. long jump). Use video editing tools (e.g. WeVideo) to compare an equivalent professional athletic action with that of your students. Use this video to help students plan how to improve their own performance.
• Languages
  • Online Collaboration – Doulingo allows students to learn languages, whilst contributing to the massive online effort of translating web-based content. This means that students can make the web better, and improve their language skills, at the same time, for free.
  • Collaborative Subtitling – challenge your students to translate a video from one language to another, working collaboratively online (e.g. Amara).
  • International Connections – use Skype’s Classroom connectivity to have your students connect with language learners in other countries to exchange conversation time and tips.
• Miscellaneous
  • Digital Scavenger Hunt – encourage students to hone their digital skills, problem solving and team work, using an online scavenger hunt, like this one.
  • Virtual Travel – use Google Tour Builder to create a virtual tour of  place you want students to experience, highlighting features and ideas relevant to your subject or topic as you go.
  • Consultancy – find a non-profit or company with a need, and offer your students to help them meet it. For example, in teaching cookery, it could be possible to help a company cater an event. Alternatively, students could offer their ICT skills to help solve computer-related problems.

Yes, this is hard work. Yes, it requires new skills. But, yes, students will engage and be enthused in new ways.

Once you start thinking in these terms, you can start coming up with your own, richer integrations. Alternatively search for “amazing classroom technology integration” in Google, or get onto Twitter and start building a community of practitioners to learn from. There is a whole world of sharing educators out there, into which we can tap.

Credit: butterfly thumbnail image by Benny Mazur on Wikimedia Commons shared under CC BY.