Technology in Lessons

Chris Hangerford’s lesson plan was successful on two levels. First, he made the subject of microeconomics come to life by putting students in a real-world situation having them run a corporation. Second, the lesson plan was effective in getting students to use practical, real-world technologies such as creating spreadsheets and graphs. Combining these two goals made for a strong lesson – i.e. he killed two birds with one stone.

One thing we need to remember is that technology should supplement the content, not over-shadow it. In Hangerford’s lesson, technology is helping to bring key economic concepts to life. I’ve had economic classes and they were based solely on lecture. The classes were boring, and students had to have active imaginations to picture how the concepts would work. With technology (ex: Lemonade Stand) students can see the cause and effect of different economic variables. I’ll wager the students understand the concept of supply and demand much better than those who just sat in a classroom and were lectured at.

The weakness to a technology based lesson plan is if students aren’t comfortable using the technology or become more fascinated with the technology than the content that they are suppose to be learning. For example, programs like Office Word are a good writing tool if students already are comfortable with word processing. However, the writing suffers if the student spends more time trying to figure out how to use the application than concentrating on what they are trying to communicate in their writing. Technology becomes distracting with programs like PowerPoint when students are more interested in playing with the “bells and whistles” of the program that adequately presenting information.

As educators, it is our responsibility to help students navigate the gray area between using technology and abusing technology. Like most things, technology is good in moderation.