The speed in which new technologies emerge is just incredible. A person who is attempting to learn about any software, after a while he would need to learn about a different one. I consider, because of the amount of things to explore, it becomes difficult to be totally updated. Nonetheless, as more updated we can be, the better the results we can get from the students and the better we can use what is available for our teaching practice.
A useful manner of being updated, which I knew about during the development of the subject New Learning Environments, is to belong to communities of practice. By doing this, we could share experiences and learn from other people who can give us ideas on how to use certain tools; this practice will optimize our time and teaching procedures.
Another way to get updated is to visit the favorite webpage about the programs we use. It is a starting point to see if the program has improvements from the previous version or if it’s possible to download an upgrade to add new functions. Also try similar software in order to compare or even, to complement the programs we have in order to add more content or more functions.
Not only for the designing programs, but also for the hardware we use in our laboratories. Upgrading the software for the hardware we use in class will fix some issues given in the lab or even to provide more functions to control the class or to offer proper feedback. Using old software for old hardware can be really harmful if we don’t visit the support webpage in order to get the most recent information about which bugs have been removed or which improvements or functions have been added.
Also try to talk with your partners about the difficulties you have in the laboratory or the program you use. Talk with the people who know how to use the program to get better information about its usage. Otherwise, you have the option to visit the forums to consult other’s problems and to find – the most probable – a solution there. This can be applied from the lab programs we use in our schools and home until the hardware that can be upgraded via software.
