Teaching with Technology

An excerpt from Zhu & Kaplan, “Teaching with Technology”, in McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, Houghton Mifflin Co Boston, MA, 2002

From a systems approach, teaching with technology involves four major components: the students, the instructor, course content, and technology tools (See Figure below). An examination of each component raises a set of issues that we need to consider in order to make technology integration as successful as possible. For example, content can be examined in terms of learning outcomes and the discipline being taught. Instructors can think of their own experience with technology, the amount of time they have for planning and teaching, and their view of their role in the teaching and learning process. We need to think carefully about our students, their exposure and access to technology as well as their preferred learning styles. Finally, we can turn to the technology itself and analyze it according to its functions. This approach to teaching and learning with technology assumes that the four component parts are integrated and that changes in one part will require adjustments to the other three in order to achieve the same goals.