Technology at Landmark College in Vermont
By Melissa Wetherby, MAT, MSIT
Often technology in education is framed as a magic bullet that will change students’ lives. In reality, students still need to master the underlying skills required in academia. Selecting technology is only half the battle; teaching students to use these technological tools for learning should be a process built into the curriculum.
For that reason, while Landmark College does integrate technologies such as Kurzweil, OneNote, and Dragon into our classrooms, we also continue to teach students more traditional methods using paper, pencil, and three-ring binders. We also try to select technology that is easy to use, and does not add to the cognitive load of our students.
Programs such as OneNote for notetaking allow students more versatility for their notes with tags, recordings, and amazing search features, but even with OneNote we still focus on the “how” of note-taking. Using Cornell two-column notes, revising notes, and reviewing notes still remain part of the equation, and of course the important piece, learning to recognize what is important to capture in a lecture and how to paraphrase and move it into long-term memory.#
