Sage Advice: Effective Technology

Each week I create a PowerPoint presentation of goals and activities that are intrinsic to the success of the class. I include relevant links to current events and topics. I refer to it throughout the week and edit and add to it as we discover relevant material. At the end of the week, I use the PowerPoint to review for the quiz or to reteach difficult concepts. I also print copies for absent students.

Barbara Masterson

English teacher

Magnolia High School

Magnolia, Texas

The most engaging and practical use of technology in my classroom is presentation software for reports, review activities, and games.The power of images combined with text and audio is so great that nearly all styles are addressed. My favorite is my homemade Jeopardy game, with scoreboard, answers, and theme music. In geometry class, at the end of a unit, we don't review; we play Geopardy!

Jim Weber

Math/science teacher and technology coordinator

Mercy Catholic High School

Red Bluff, California

An LCD projector connected to a computer. The projector allows anything on the computer screen to be projected on a basic, white overhead screen. Think of all the places in cyberspace that you could go with your class while surfing the Internet together or watching streaming video.The LCD projector is also versatile. You can hook up a DVD player, a VCR, or another output device for big-screen viewings.

Brigitt Donlon

FAME curriculum coordinator

Dent Middle School

Columbia, South Carolina

The software that holds the most promise is really a technological philosophy: the open-source movement. Give every student an old laptop that businesses no longer use. Download a free, blindingly fast Linux operating system (www.puppylinux.com/puppy [1]). A keychain flash drive with free software (www.openoffice.org [2]) does 95 percent of everything Microsoft Office can do. Then let students read from free online classics (www.literature.org/authors [3]) rather than having to lug around those cumbersome anthologies.

Todd Blake Finley

Associate professor of English education

East Carolina University

Greenville, North Carolina

The pencil and paper. Sure, they're old technology, but they work, they're cheap enough to give plenty to every kid in school, and they don't take any special training.

Jon Simon

First-grade teacher (and former computer consultant)

Searles Elementary School

Union City, California

I teach art, and any time a student wants information on a particular artist and to see images, we just go online together. I can access art museums and galleries around the world -- armchair travel at its best.

Susan Adler

Art instructor

Ridgway High School

Santa Rosa, California

A well-prepared teacher. She or he has the capacity to inform, challenge, and open minds. Using a variety of media -- chalkboard, computer, presentation tools -- and enthusiasm, a teacher can open a window in any subject.

Kathleen Gora

Technology facilitator

Most Blessed Sacrament School

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Wireless technology permits students to access information on the Internet in real time while working on projects, cases, and presentations. A wireless educator station is essential to class facilitation. Real-time participation with peers and colleagues outside of the physical classroom simulates team dynamics.

Christine Cope

Pence lecturer

A. Gary Anderson Graduate School of Business

University of California

Riverside, California

I love United Streaming for using video clips in the classroom.United Streaming has every video subdivided into topic-specific clips just a few minutes long. Teachers have more control over the content. Much better than wasting forty-five minutes of a fifty-minute class with a video and notes.

Bill Lewis

Technology project coordinator

Austin Independent School District

Austin, Texas

Without any doubt, the most useful and powerful technology for use in the classroom today is the interactive whiteboard. A teacher finally has a tool that actively engages the students with all the learning potential that can be found on the Internet. Contemporary sites, animated applets, Web search engines, and whiteboard-specific software make a classroom more inviting and thought-provoking, no matter what the subject area.

Ron Larentowicz

Math/computer-science teacher

Woodlynde School

Strafford, Pennsylvania

When used correctly, video is the most effective technology in the classroom. Clipping segments and pausing during playback to ask questions make video an effective and complementary source of instruction. Students are likely to be more engaged when they are asked to interact throughout the video, as opposed to the end (when two or three might be sleeping).

T. J. Fletcher

Chemistry teacher

Eagan High School

Eagan, Minnesota