Over coffee this morning a couple of us were discussing Mark Prensky‘s chapter on How to Teach with Technology (PDF), part of Becta’s Emerging Technologies for Learning: Volume 2. In his chapter which, it must be noted, is focused on secondary rather than post-secondary education, Prensky suggests that teachers shouldn’t be taught how to use the latest technology that should be left to the students. Instead energy should be re-focused:

“teachers must learn what these technologies are and can do, and understand them, but without necessarily becoming proficient in their use… …Teachers also need to help students apply technologies wisely to real problems, and to reflect and search for the deeper issues that the technologies raise, and to bring up and discuss these issues with the students…”

He goes on to give four examples based around wikipedia, podcasting, Instant Messaging and mobile phone cameras. The chapter is well worth a read if only for some of the great quotes he has from students! And then to consider if it applies to HE too…