When students are using technology as a tool or a support for communicating
with others, they are in an active role rather than the passive role of
recipient of information transmitted by a teacher, textbook, or broadcast. The
student is actively making choices about how to generate, obtain, manipulate, or
display information. Technology use allows many more students to be actively
thinking about information, making choices, and executing skills than is typical
in teacher-led lessons. Moreover, when technology is used as a tool to support
students in performing authentic tasks, the students are in the position of
defining their goals, making design decisions, and evaluating their progress.
The teacher's role changes as well. The teacher is no longer the center of
attention as the dispenser of information, but rather plays the role of
facilitator, setting project goals and providing guidelines and resources,
moving from student to student or group to group, providing suggestions and
support for student activity. As students work on their technology-supported
products, the teacher rotates through the room, looking over shoulders, asking
about the reasons for various design choices, and suggesting resources that
might be used. (See
example of teacher as coach.)
Project-based work (such as the City Building Project and the
Student-Run
Manufacturing Company) and cooperative learning approaches prompt this
change in roles, whether technology is used or not. However, tool uses of
technology are highly compatible with this new teacher role, since they
stimulate so much active mental work on the part of students. Moreover, when the
venue for work is technology, the teacher often finds him or herself joined by
many peer coaches--students who are technology savvy and eager to share their
knowledge with others.
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