Ian Lande CHEP

Using Digital Tech in Education

I have one thing to add as a discussion topic. Currently I ask students to complete an on-line assessment test in a required forum.
I have been amazed at how many students have to email with some very basic questions. I have had to re-give out the course ID because students do not copy it down correctly in class or from the emails send to them.
Or there are registration issues. Or even after being explained how to register and then take the quizzes step by step in class, students do not find the right quizzes, do not take the right quizzes, etc.
From one persepctive, this experience seems to be a waste of time. If I just gave them this test in class in paper form, they would do the test and then results would be forthcoming. Yet they need to learn to work in the digital world which is part of why this is being done on-line.
A colleague of mine once said a great line about using the internet about her teenage students, "they know how to use the internet to socialize, they don't know how to use it for education."
It is a totally different topic that I'll not get into here, but when students do research, her statement is backed up a thousand-fold!