When Technology Fails

At Math for America’s most recent Master Teachers on Teaching event, I presented “When Technology Fails”, a short talk about how my personal and professional experiences have shaped the way I view and teach technology.

The failure of technology has been a consistent part of my personal and professional computing experience.  These failures have served as excellent learning opportunities, and perhaps more importantly, they have instilled in me a healthy distrust of technology.

As a teacher, I find students far too trusting of technology.  Often, they accept what their calculators or computers tell them unthinkingly.  In my talk, I discuss how we can make students conscious of the shortcomings of technology in ways that create meaningful learning opportunities.  And hopefully, by confronting the failures of technology head on, students will develop a healthier attitude about what technology can, and can’t, do.

A video of “When Technology Fails” can be viewed here.  And a talk I gave at a previous MT^2 event, “g = 4, and Other Lies the Test Told Me”, can be seen here.