#EdTechWish: What Do We Want?

This post was originally published in Edutopia.

Education Technology is such a necessity in every 21 century classroom. It is no wonder that EdTech is one of the most popular discussion topics in schools, personal & professional learning communities amongst educators.

What triggered this post? Lindsey Lipsky, an amazing educator in my Twitter Personal Learning Network, wrote a blog post about what teachers hope EdTech would do in 2015. She makes a point that teachers and the makers of EdTech should communicate somehow to make better products to be used by teachers and students. You can read her blog post here: http://lindseylipsky.weebly.com/blog/-edtech2015-what-do-you-wish-for-in…

Her post triggered a chat and a general discussion on twitter which you can follow using #EdTechWish with many teachers sharing what they wish for EdTech.

A few years ago I started dabbling in the world of EdTech and Edtech startups. As a result I had the opportunity to see both perspective. In Edtech there are usually two sides:

The User & the Maker

But what happens if the user was also the maker? What happens if teachers or students (users) had a helping hand in the making of EdTech?

I started to find out by building my own EdTech as a teacher with a great design studio. I learned a few things from the process as a result. Here are some of the things that I wish all EdTech would do:

• Pedagogy: EdTech should help move pedagogy forward. In other words, while most edtech is great because it helps make life easier, and get things done faster, the main *Driving* purpose of EdTech should be to improve the teacher’s pedagogy in the classroom.
• Autonomy: edtech should allow the user to gain full control of it. This can mean many things, but the most important one is that it should not hinder the user (be it the teacher or the student) throughout the learning process.
• Experience: The overall experience of *using* the edtech is very important. Use should be simple, seamless and intuitive.
• Learning process/Outcomes: Edtech should support student’s learning process and help them meet learning outcomes through its use.

These discussions are important to have because EdTech is essential to our students’ learning. Please share what your #EdTechWish with us either in the comments here or on Twitter.