Welcome to a new section in Techstyle.
21 Century students need 21 Century teachers that can prepare them; this means different things to different people. IN this section, we will take the time to explore the tools and methods that work to achieve these goals. You might ask, why pair tools and methods. The answer is straightforward. Tools give us many affordances; they can save us time, they can save us effort, sometimes they can save us money. But tools by themselves are ineffective in accomplishing any of that. Instead, it is the methods that we use to employ these tools that make synergy. Thus, talking only about iPads, Piazza, or an infographic gives us only an instruction manual. But paired with methods, we can achieve some understanding of best practices the result is a roadmap.
Likewise, methods without the tools that drive them are disconnected from purpose. A survey without a protocol or an interview without a script produces results that are not generalizable and data that is unrepeatable. What we want instead, in this column, is to share the complement of tools and methods, so that we can share what works best and provide a well-rounded view of interesting topics to our audience.
