Aly Tapp (submitted photo)
Aly Tapp, an English teacher and technology integration coach at York Suburban High School, was recently named the 2012 Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology.
I’ve interviewed Tapp a few times. We spoke for a story about Steve Jobs and the legacy he left in education, and for this story about “flipped” classrooms. In light of her award, I wanted to ask her a few questions about technology use in education. Here are her answers!
Q: How has technology changed the way you teach?
A: When I started teaching, the Internet was still pretty new, and we viewed it as largely unreliable. If you wanted information, you asked an expert or took a trip to the library.
Now, technology provides answers to all the basic knowledge questions. Students can use Google to find the information instantly. For teachers, this is a monument shift. First, we must acknowledge that asking students to memorize trivia is a waste of time. While some information needs to be memorized (math facts, for example), much more information is just a smart-phone away, so why would we memorize it? It has become much more important to ask “why” questions. We need to spend more time asking kids to be critical consumers. I teach English, and as time goes on, my idea of literacy is changing. We used to read novels and write essays. In addition to that, we now read non-fiction, blogs, and critiques, and we express ourselves through essays, screencasts, and forum posts. Technology has also changed the way I prepare materials. I upload texts and instructions to our online classroom, which means I spend MUCH less time in the copy room. That’s a total win.
Q: What’s your favorite way to use technology to use in class? What do you think is the kids’ favorite?
A: Technology is just the new way of managing the learning task. It doesn’t have to be fancy; it needs to be functional. If the technology gets in the way of the curriculum, then it’s a distraction. I think technology is working best when it allows us to do something more efficiently. I like when students are using online collaboration to study a text together. They can add annotations, images, and hyperlinks. Their interaction with the text can be so much richer than it is with nothing but a textbook and a worksheet. I think students like when technology includes multimedia. They live in a very rich environment with image, video, and music. They come to school and they have to “power-down.” I still believe that sustained, patient problem-solving is important — maybe even more so now that students are bombarded with media all day long — but I also think we need to work toward including these elements in instruction when appropriate. We will become archaic if we continue to pretend that students don’t need that stuff at school. It’s our job to stress the need for media and sustained and focused mental effort. There’s room for both and there’s a need for both.
Q: What’s the biggest challenge in incorporating technology in the classroom? How do you overcome it?
A: I run a nearly paperless classroom, so initially, I needed to find ways to manage that without losing my head. I have that pretty organized now, but I am always looking for new ways to streamline things. I use screencasting for paper assessment, meaning that I pull up the student’s paper on my screen and then record my screen and my voice as I talk to the student about his or her work. The kids really appreciate the detailed and personalized feedback, but it takes a lot of time. I have to limit my comments and use rubrics to guide my assessment. In class, the biggest challenge is to make sure that the technology is not a distraction for the students. An open laptop is tempting for a student. When I was their age, I was distracted by doodling or daydreaming. Today’s students might check the basketball scores or the weather online. When I need their attention, I simply say, “Lids down.” It works so well!
Q: What do you think is going to be the next big thing, so to speak, in terms of technology use in education?
A: We’re going to see a move away from textbooks and toward digital delivery. The laptop or tablet will be the singular school supply. We’re also going to see a change in our approach to mobile devices. We used to treat them as contraband, but we’re moving toward an embrace of their educational power. I think by the time I retire, we will look back in awe at the way things were in 1999. The ubiquitous nature of technology will force changes in scheduling, course selection … school as we know it today will be history.
Q: What advice do you have for teachers trying to become more tech-savvy in the classroom? Any ideas for places to start or where to get assistance?
A: You can’t be afraid of your computer. You also can’t learn how to use technology by creating detailed step-by-step lists of instructions. You just have to start using it. It’s great to start with something in your personal life first, because it’s low-risk and private. Start using an online calendar, create a photo montage of your vacation, or use Skype to communicate with family in another state. Once you get that hang of using technology in your personal life, the crossover to the classroom is easy!