Far, far too many educators do look at amazing tools and then try to come up with uses for them. The most practical example of this are the interactive s, sorry, whiteboards across many schools. These have generally been put in because a school has obtained some funding or has identified a visual benefit to equip the school. I would suggest that up to 80% of such boards across UK schools are simply used as projector screens.

The happy medium of all this has to come from effective CPD (continuing professional development). Here keen new teachers can be given an opportunity to share ideas. At my school they’ve just given all staff the opportunity to be paid to deliver CPD sessions. It is very clearly not aimed at just Heads of Department or suchlike. Anyone can come up with a proposal to share good practice. Hopefully such a concept can start discussions between all staff.

The personal solution to this has also to be to ’stuff’ your virtual toolkit with ideas – making a note of new developments and new technologies – and then focusing on your classroom delivery. Only even make use of ICT – existing or cutting edge concepts – if it adds value. Sometimes the best use of ICT is not even to use it. ;)

…it’s also true that teachers need to have an opportunity to play with tools and discover how they might best be used. I think that this is probably one of the best uses for the early adopters of a tool.

The problem is that professional development time isn’t set aside just for teachers to ‘tinker’ or explore new tools which could be used pedagogically. Ergo, it’s only those with the most free time (i.e. usually young teachers new to the profession) who can do this. But, they’ve got the least pedagogical experience to hang it on. Crazy. :s