The New Kids on the Block

Let me start this by saying that power point is old hat.  Some teachers think that assigning power points for their students to complete is so very cutting edge.  I say that students learn power point about the same time they wean themselves off the bottle.  If we continue to limit ourselves to power point only, we are robbing ourselves and our students of great learning potential.

With that said, technology offers a great deal for both teaching and assessing--for pushing students in a new direction with their learning.  Let's look at teaching first.  I've noticed that many times teachers use power point slides and then lecture off of them.  How does is this different from old school notes on the board?  It isn't.  Not to say that power points aren't great--but they are better as talking points and most definitely better used sparingly.  However, teachers can use things such as Google Earth, Teacher Tube, and blogging to help push student discussion out of the classroom and into the real world.

Blogging is a great way to get students to talk about what they are learning, reading, and writing.  While I mainly use mine for reflection on my behalf, it was originally geared towards my students.  Students were required to respond to my posts at least 4 times a month.  This was a grade for them.  I've watched other teachers try to implement blogs on a volunteer basis from their students.  They got few if any hits.  Students need the requirement built in to push them past their innate apathy.  But once you push them, they will post for you.  The best way to get this set up is to walk them through the first through months as a class.  Its also good to post helpful links for them and then guide them to use it while in the library doing research.

Two other teaching tools that I haven't gotten the chance to explore yet are Google Earth and Teacher Tube.  Google Earth is one of the many programs that let anyone look anywhere in the world using satellites.  Google Earth, however, has locations loaded that are particularly beneficial to teachers and students.  For example, there is a tour, already created, of 80 sites mentioned in Shakespeare's plays.  Talk about making learning authentic for students--imagine starting them at their school and watching the world turn as they move towards Stratford-on-the-Avon.    Teacher Tube is a video site similar to YouTube.  Since most schools have YouTube blocked, there is now a video site for teachers to use.  I haven't thoroughly explored the site, but I know that I religiously used the Literature Launchers in my Glencoe teacher toolbox.  (Its really one of the only supplemental materials I used.)  Anytime you can show your students a short video on the material they are studying, you are tapping into their video-driven intellects.

We must continue to try to at the very least keep up with what our students are interested in.  If schools continue to be left out in the cold, then they will continue to be meaningless places for students who are simply wiling their time away until they can go do what they really want to do.  But if we stay current in our technology and on the cutting edge of cool, then learning can be fun again--just like it was when we got our first chapter book and could read all by ourselves.