Technology in the Classroom
February 20th, 2009
Cell phones often are a source of distraction in the classroom. Despite admonitions to turn them off, someone forgets and everyone hears the incoming call. Text messaging, on the other hand, tends to distract the instructor but no one else. Rather than fight the texting, perhaps instructors can engage students by encouraging them to text about the class subject matter. Obviously, this needs to be done in a structured and meaningful way, and Audience Response Systems (ARS) provide a promising model.
February 16th, 2009
Our students are digital natives, a term that means that teens look at the Internet, cell phones, instant messaging, and text messaging as a part of their normal social lives. Adults are digital immigrants who use technology as a tool to supplement our lives. For students, asking them to turn off the communications technology is like asking them to eat steak without a knife and fork. Sure, the kids could eat the steak, but it’s messy and awkward without the right tools. Our students are so used to their digital tools that face-to-face communication and online communication blend seamlessly.
That seamless blend of the live and the virtual makes cyberbullying, bullying that takes place through a digital medium, a more complex problem to solve than just turning off the cell phone or logging off the computer. Thirty percent of our students have experienced cyberbullying, the effects of which extend beyond the online universe and into their offline world – including the classroom.
January 16th, 2009
As of this writing, the economic downturn is the third longest since 1945. Families are stretching their dollars further and kids are less likely to wear the latest tennis shoes or play the latest video game.
We’re all tightening our belts, but some of us do it better than others. Financial literacy is important for students to understand, not just during economic recessions, but for positive life-long spending habits.
December 12th, 2008
If you’re like 60% of the teachers researcher Dr. Jeff Ertzberger surveyed, you want to use video games in your classroom, but you don’t have a lot of time to create your own. You also want to customize the game for your curriculum and state standards and you’d like the technology to work every time, and to have plenty of LCD projectors and computers to go around.
Ertzberger, the Director of Technology at the Watson School of Education at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, can’t help you with getting you the technology you need, but if you have access to an LCD projector and have basic skills with Microsoft Office programs, he has some game templates for you to incorporate into your daily plans at his Template Games and Utilities site: http://people.uncw.edu/ertzbergerj/msgames.htm.
December 4th, 2008
Most of your students can tell you where they were on 9/11, just as a generation ago people could remember where they were when President John F. Kennedy died. Each generation has its pivotal moment; for the WWII generation, that event was Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
National Geographic has captured Pearl Harbor’s events in a multi-media timeline and map that would work well as a history mini-unit, stretching over one or two class periods. http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/ax/map.html The site’s interactive timeline pulls up maps of the Hawaiian Islands with ship and aircraft movements. Clicking on Full Story reveals a paragraph about each event on the timeline, photos from the moment, and sometimes first-person testimonials about the event.
September 29th, 2008
Psephophobia is the fear of voting.
Maybe voters are afraid of the small booths, the machines, or the hanging chad. Perhaps young voters just don’t know what to expect.
Whatever their fear, a 2003 study from Representative Democracy in America: Voices of the People found that only 66 percent of 15- 26-year-olds thought voting was part of being a good citizen.
September 22nd, 2008
My new favorite site for in-depth politics is from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato. Sabato calls his site the Crystal Ball and bills itself as the Web’s most accurate political analysis. I’m not qualified to judge that, but I do think the site would be useful in a classroom.
September 15th, 2008
Voting America, a site from the Digital Scholarship Lab at the University of Richmond, has put together interactive and cinematic maps that illustrate how the states voted in each presidential election from 1840 – 2004.
Cinematic maps. The cinematic maps play like a movie and show how the states have changed in population and politics from the 19th through the 21st centuries. When you select a map series, you can pause, rewind, or fast forward the player. Clicking on the year opens up the Wikipedia entry for that year’s election in a new window.
September 10th, 2008
I loved my computer grading program. Sure, it had its quirks, its functionality problems, but I loved the neat columns of numbers that didn’t come from my calculator at 11 p.m. the night before.
I really began to love it when Mark, an art teacher I worked with and admired, showed me how it could be a great documentation tool. This tip is stolen directly from that eye-opening conversation one parent-teacher conference night. Thank you, Mark.
September 5th, 2008
Seventh grade language arts teacher Beth Hill stands in front of the photocopier less and less each year. Hill has an interactive whiteboard in her classroom, so the need for handouts has decreased.
“I have one large packet of worksheets that I use to review reading maps, charts, graphs, floor plans, etc. I used to just give [students] the worksheets and let them do the [sheets] individually,” Hill said. “Once I got the board, I scanned all the worksheets into Notebook software and let the kids come to the board to complete the activities. They’re much more involved.”
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