The Tools of Tomorrow: New Technologies in the Classroom
By Mark Nichol
1/4/08
I'm not old, but I feel like a fossil when I remember taking a continuing-education course for teachers about computers nearly twenty years ago. Each of us was given one large, thin floppy disk after another, onto which, with guidance from our instructor, we took turns copying various low tech simulations and activities from the classroom's lone personal computer, a primitive and boxy IBM clone.
I was in the midst of an eighteen-month stint as a substitute teacher at the time and then had my own classroom for a few years after that, and during that period, I never saw a computer in a classroom, much less used one. My students never benefited from that stack of floppies, which I eventually threw away unused. (In my first job after I left teaching, I used a toaster-size but much friendlier Apple IIe, and I also learned an amazing new function called email.)
The most sophisticated technological application I used during my teaching career was the videocassette recorder. Imagine -- recording a televised science program or Reading Rainbow episode broadcast at an inconvenient time onto videotape and playing it for the class later! What will they think of next?
Those memories amuse me now, especially whenever I read accounts in our articles of students conducting online research, creating Web sites, maintaining blogs, assembling multimedia presentations, producing videos, engaging in instant feedback with classroom response systems, using global-positioning-system devices to acquire scientific data, and otherwise manipulating various technological equipment to acquire and record knowledge and understanding.
Every generation gets a turn at staring, goggle eyed, as younger people use remarkable tech tools as blithely as Captain Kirk flipped open his communicator (hello, cell phone!) and ordered Scotty to beam him up, and I smile when I think about what today's students will shake their heads at when they see their own children handling -- or perhaps remotely guiding -- gadgets and contraptions whose functions and abilities seem indistinguishable from magic.
Prognostication is perilous. Virtual reality so far has not fulfilled its early promise, and other technologies introduced in fact and fiction may not be ready for the marketplace for years to come, or ever. But it is exhilarating for me, even though I'm not a tech geek and I no longer teach, to ponder how the gap between technology available in the classroom and commercial products ubiquitous in the home and the office will narrow in the coming decades.
What gizmos have you heard about, or do you imagine, will be commonplace in the classroom of tomorrow? How will the paradigms of education be altered as technology enables students to be more self-directed and mobile in their learning? How easily will educators be able to adapt to an educational process predicated by ever-evolving tech tools? Please share your thoughts.
New technologies
I have had some new experiences with a website, www.myicourse.com. This has allowed me to create online programs for my students who miss assignments, or for my special needs kids. I teach in an very underfunded rural public school in Kansas and I have found this new site to be of some benefit. I use it for augmenting my classwork, preparation for substitutes, and helping to create assignments for kids who have trouble getting to school on a regular basis. Since it is free, my principal likes it. Parents really appreciate the fact that they can come to my own online university. It also allows me to give great make-up tests.
classroom technology
Thanks for the web-site tip.
It sounds very practcal and useful-I'll check it out!
New Technologies
It's great that even though you are not teaching, you are interested and using some of the most accessible and current technology available to our students. There is a really neat item that our many of the classrooms in my school have... a "smart board". This is an interactive board, to enhance the latter chalk board or the recent white boards. The kids can interact and activate this board by touch. It can make sounds, recognize writing, demonstrate entire disections for biology, or can single out a specific instrument line for music class. It's possibilities are endless, and even though I don't have it in my room yet...the free software for it is amazing to use even on a computer projector. I can't even imagine what would be the next wave in technology... maybe the kids would have better ideas than any teacher!~
You have posted some interesting questions. At our Canadian school, we have adopted the concept of Universal Design for Learning (UDL). We have a variety of assistive technology for our special needs students but we also make sure the same support is available for all learners. The special needs students in our Language and Literacy systems class each have an individual laptop assigned to support learning. We have available software such as Read and Write Gold, iListen (MAC version of Dragon Naturally Speaking), reading pens etc. We develop learner profiles for students then strategically place assistive technology to assist with learning e.g. if a student has difficulty with writing mechanics we ask the student to use Read and Write Gold software.
Technology
Wow, the difference between the haves and have nots. I teach in an urban district in Ohio that receives large amounts of money from the Bill Gates foundation and we don't even have computers for teacher usage, let alone lap tops for each student. I would love to catch up to an Apple II E. Funding in mostly minority schools is leaving a generation that is used to video games, cell phones and text messaging completely bored in school and unprepared to face the technology needs of todays employers.
technology is it all good
Technology is a wonderful thing but sometimes it is in the way. For example the cell phone for some crazy reason a student can not be with out it. I teach high school and I cannot count the number of times I tell kids to put there phone away they are always texting someone. Would it be so bad to go 50 minutes without talking to your friends.
The computer is a great thing and it can do many things but does a student know how to open a book and use the index to find information or an encyclopedia. When they find information on the computer do they know how to summarize it? NO! But they know how to copy and paste it.
Technology is a wonderful thing but I feel it would be better to get back to the basics sometimes.
Technology in the classroom
I have recently read several articles on brain research. There have been quit a few scientific, very credible studies that advocate the use of a program called Fast Forward. This program has improved reading skills in students who have had severe deficits in this area. I think the future of technology in educations should be linked with scientific research. The possibilities are boundless regarding new technologies and use in the classroom.
I received a grant for a SMART Board from my district's education foundation. The kindergarten students use their finger as the mouse on a large white board mounted to the wall. I have a projector and speakers mounted to the ceiling and the whole thing runs from what ever is on my desktop computer. We can use it with websites, programs loaded on my computer or I can create my own lessons using the Smart Board Notebook software. It is so cool and it really engages the students!
Technology only getting better!
I have had the opportunity to work in a school district where a bran new elementary school just opened Fall of 2007. I am not teaching there, but have friends who are at this building. They are fortunate to have new and up to date technology in all the classrooms, including "smart boards." These smart boards are so interactive and allow children wonderful opportunities and make learning so much fun! I am a new teacher and I think technology is only going to increase the abilities in our students learning and create an exciting environment for them learn! What will the future hold for us, it is quite remarkable!
technology
I find myself in the middle of liking technology and no tliking it. I use technology all the time. I use it to create new activities for my classroom, record grades, create lesson plan pages, smartboard activities, communicate with parents, etc. However, I find myself competing with movies, highly graphic cartoons, and video games. It seems as though no matter what I do to entertain my students, get them interested or engage their brains in higher level thinking, it doesn't compare to the video game world. Does anyone else find themselves in the same place I am?
Jeana