Don't promise ice cream and serve vegetables

Teachers:

Don't promise this 

and serve up this!!

If you are demonstrating to learners about technology and getting excited about the clever things it does, and the ease and speed of it all. . . . don't then give learners a photocopy of the technology and ask them to fill it in by hand in tiny boxes!  (especially if the technology is already in the room ready to go!).  That would be like promising ice cream to a child and serving up vegetables.

If learners need to spend 5 minutes getting to grips with a spreadsheet or a simple piece of tech - do it . . .  this is what we call embedding technology!!!  If you don't have the technology in the classroom - ask them to complete it for homework and then share what they have done in the next lesson.


Extra note for spreadsheets:
If you are using spreadsheets that automatically do things where the user punches in the numbers and it works it out (e.g. risk assessments, sport analysis etc)- get learners to punch in different sets of numbers according to different scenarios and then peer assess. Everyone eating the same flavour ice cream can be terribly dull - try creating an ice cream parlour instead!