On Technical Terms

"My beliefs about Technology and Learning"

It's hard to think back to a point in my life when technology wasn't at my fingertips. One of my earliest memories in fact includes pixels on a television screen, a 16-bit music score playing over the speakers and my fingers wrapped around my dad's Atari controller. I remember an old gaming computer we had in our house (an old Mac, rainbow apple logo and all) that we slid cartridges into what was also a keyboard. I remember computer class in elementary school being one of my favorites. It was second grade, but we learned how to use a mouse and get that diver to chase it to the bottom of the screen to pick up that treasure chest. We learned how to cross the country in a covered wagon as settlers on the Oregon Trail and winced every time we lost our cousin "Phil" to the small pox. We solved mysteries with Carmen San-Diego and we scouted the rainforest in the Amazon. But these games and classes were designed for just that: learning.

And my wagon had little luck in everything else

Never had much luck fishing in this game.

 I was born in 1986, when computers were just starting to come down to a size that didn't encompass a whole laboratory room unto themselves to compute simple calculator level mathematics. Gone are the days of punch card "programming" where a card stock piece of paper was what you needed to communicate with software and hardware alike. I never in my life banged away a paper on a typewriter, and certainly have never had to re-type an entire page for one little simple misspelling  or smudge at the very end of it. I grew up with technology at my fingertips.

Now at only 26, I have been outstripped. I am admittedly smartphone dumb. I still believe I am proficient and ahead in Photoshop even if truthfully I am far behind what it is capable of. Iphones baffle me and I had dial-up in my home only a year ago. I still don't know what a podcast really is, wonder why people feel the need to tell the world they're on the pot in things like twitter, and I have never had the gull to place a diary open to the world on my Facebook.

I still, however, retain my sensibility and some big bit of foresight. Kids today will run circles around what I know. As an educator, that bugs me. I can offer no help and no new knowledge to them with what I don't know.

It is our responsibility as educators not only to educate ourselves on technology, but to include it as a tool (not a crutch, but a resource) in classrooms nearly every single day that we are in our professional careers. To not do so not only takes away our "marketing" edge to our lesson plans, but the student's desire to be connected with the material.

Use what they know to make them own it. Take virtual museum tours. Set up jeopardy rounds with a SMART board for test reviews. Let yourself scour the internet for lesson plan ideas that you can use and make your own. Shake up your content, and don't let yourself get bored with it. Video conference with classes across the hall, or better yet, in Hawaii or Russia. Send Flat Stanley emails along with the letters. Help them build websites for their resumes. Let them see how red and blue make purple by sliding shapes across a SMART board. Record lessons on podcasts. Have students create movies on their summary of the results on their latest chemistry experiment on a class website. Show them videos off PBS, and when you have moments to kill and no resources to use, gather them around your laptop or projector and use your Netflix instant watch account to show them the Bill Nye videos you couldn't find to rent.

Create technology where you can't find it. With about $100 or less, you can CREATE your own SMART board! How to Make Your own SMART Board with a Wii Remote

If you wonder if you can pull something off, google a how-to. If you find a strange bug no one can identify at recess, show your students how to email a digital picture to AllExperts.com and have an expert email you back!

Not including technology into the classroom not only does a disservice to yourself, but to the knowledge and, ultimately, to the career paths you set your students up to persue.


- heyyou -