Week Eleven: Lessons in Technology

There is so much that you can do to incorporate technology! It used to be so daunting to me, but now it's second nature! You can use technology to present the bulk of your material through interactive boards and presentations, you can teach via videos from TeacherTube or YouTube or TED, you can use these same methods to simply hook the students and get them interested, you can use technology research for research projects, you can add sound and music to lessons, you can read books online, you can answer questions in the moment through the vastness that is Google, the list could go on and on.

There is quite a difference between integrating technology into other subjects and teaching technology. You can integrate the use of and the education of technology within other subjects. For example, if you assign a paper to be written, here is an excellent opportunity to discuss things such as Word, setting up a page with headers, footers, margins, spacing, dates, etc; or how to look up the right material for the paper using the appropriate sites; or how to decipher what might be valid and truthful and what might be false; or how practice typing. Or if your project is research, you could teach how to setup a PowerPoint, how to create note cards, how to look up definitions, how to cite internet sources and find out if they are credible, how to save photos so that minimal distortion takes place (right click on the image, click Save As, save as and where you want, open new image from where ever you saved it to). And all of these opportunities within the context of an English paper or a science presentation.

The other side of this is a class time or period dedicated to teaching the tech skills, not the content. Here the importance is to know about Word or PowerPoint, not so much the material used or presented. This is more beneficial for teaching typing and basic skills with a computer, not on integrating it or using it with what it will be most beneficial for.

English paper

How to properly setup the page.

The purpose is to write a good paper, not to know how to setup the page, but to be able to easily read the paper it must be set up properly and therefore this is a very valuable lesson. The point is not to teach the set up, but the English content, however, both are needed.

Science Presentation

How to know if a site is credible and worthy of time.

The purpose of the presentation is to research, to communicate well, and to gain information. But knowing which information to include and which to discard takes practice and understanding that must be taught. We don't always know what is incorrectly written. Therefore, we have an excellent opportunity to teach students to look up multiple resources and take the info that is the same in all.

Math Facts Games

How to opperate websites and games online.

There are many educational game websites out there. Some very useful ones revolve around math facts. Some students will come in knowing how to access the site that the appropriate game is located on, some won't. Here is a good opportunity to teach how to access the correct site and how to play the game. This is not the purpose, but necessary for the purpose to come through. If the student doesn't know how to operate the site, s/he won't know how to play the game and won't gain the information necessary.