How to make technologies useful in school

Smart dust, 4D printing, human augmentation, digital twin... It was interesting yet overwhelming to check out Gartner's hype cycle for emerging technologies. While comparing their assumptions with our current situations, we can see that some terms once exist then become widely adopted, like VR/AR and cloud computing. Some have long been known to everyone, but still have not been applied to the mainstream, such as mobile robots. And there are also concepts which are neither popular nor have they been put into practice. It's not new to learn that high technologies do not definitely mean high productivity. And it happens a lot in schools as well.

Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2010

Just as some teachers mentioned, they would think hard about how to make use of the advanced devices in schools, so that the investment would not seem like a waste of money. Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? It's kind of the decision makers to wish to benefit their students with the amazing technologies, while they really should be more careful about the decisions they make. And a lot of considerations and assessment should have been involved. Even me can have some suggestions for them, with what I have learned from this Managing Educational Technology Resources class. 

First, they should define the learning problems. And they could draw a journey map of the learning process of the students to see which part they could have done better. Meanwhile, they need to listen to the students, teachers and other stakeholders. After all, people are the most important link in a design process. What's more, they are ought to study carefully about the affordances and constraints they have in order to adopt the proper devices. Before the wide implementation, they should do some pilot programs in a small range and make adjustments according to the feedback. Even if the devices have been implemented, their work is not done yet. Training teachers to fully use them, assessing the productivity of them and contacting the producers about updating when it is necessary... The list just goes on and on.