Abstract:

In this publication, we address aspects that educators should take into account when looking for education technologies to use in their teaching. It is mainly targeted towards educators in smaller organization without a dedicated support infrastructure to guide their staff on these issues. As long as the educational staff has sufficient autonomy in making their own decisions about the tools they use and how to apply them in their teaching, the presented ideas can be applied across all educational contexts - in schools, higher education, adult education, and in-service training. In the first part of this article, we outline challenges in selecting and using education technologies. In the following guidelines, we suggest four aspects to consider when selecting education technologies: the division in internal and external solutions offers a simple but highly relevant line of thought for identifying appropriate tools; the list of universal criteria highlights issues that should always be considered before investing time and money in any educational technology; the next section presents a typology for classifying education technologies according to their purpose in the teaching process; finally, we draw attention to frameworks that help to comprehend the wider context for applying educational technologies in a meaningful way.

Over the last three years (2018.10. - 2021.10.), Ventspils University of Applied Sciences has made a considerable effort to promote the use of education technologies among its teaching staff. These activities were embedded within the project "Next Generation Micro Cities of Europe", which provided means for upgrading the existing technological infrastructure, to pilot possible solutions, to offer technological and pedagogical support to educators, and to reflect on what works and what does not. In this process, it became apparent that for many teachers the selection and use of education technologies coincide with substantial challenges. The ideas outlined in this publication constitute our response to these challenges: a guideline for selecting and using educational challenges, which incorporates our own experiences and conclusions, as well as two existing frameworks and models that we have identified as being relevant to the context of our teaching staff. As many organizations, and even more educators, face similar challenges, we want to share our findings.

Keywords:

Education technologies (EdTech), challenges for educators, selection criteria, effective teaching process, ubiquitous learning, meaningful use of methods.