Whether for the benefit of others, or simply myself, I thought it would be useful to spell out the ways in which I currently use technology in my classroom. When I started teaching in my current position 4 years ago, we did not have enough textbooks for all of our students. At first I thought it would be a nightmare, but I struggled through for the first year, and eventually redesigned the entire course curriculum to include topics and activities that were relevant to the standards and addressed the information found on the dreaded standardized tests.
Since that awful first year, I have designed 95% of everything used in our 8th grade science program, created PowerPoint notes for students to complete, found video clips (who knew youtube would actually serve a purpose), and have had students use portable lap top carts to bring the computers to the classroom. The cart mostly allows all students to make digital graphs and to participate in interactive web sites. With the use of technology, I have used the internet to help answer student questions right before their very eyes (presto, like magic), find videos and other interactives that help students visualize abstract concepts and to demonstrate things we could never do in a classroom.
What has been the most useful??? In my opinion, 8th grade students are generally awkward, in most every way imaginable, but especially mentally. Very few of them are able bridge all of the gaps, or make all of the connections between topics, ideas, and materials. I have two goals, and no matter how I look at it, they lead the way to science success. Goal #1: Students need to understand the purpose and benefits of science. I know they wont all become scientists, thats unrealistic. However, you dont have to be a scientist or even like science to understand the purpose and benefits. Goal #2: I want students to be interested in science. The way I see it, students learn what they want to learn. If I can use technology to take a previously boring thing, and make it cool and fun, students will naturally want to learn and see and do more. That, in my opinion, is what science should be about. Once forced into technology, I can appreciate the beauty of using "it" but am still not 100% confident in my abilities in "it". And that folks, is why I am here
Our school subscribes to Discovery Education digital library and I used that frequently the first year or two- but in the last couple years I have found myself using You tube more and more- there is some good stuff on there from mythbusters o the periodic table of videos channel.
ReplyDeleteJD,
ReplyDeleteI like the two goals you have. I think it's so important for students to get excited about science in middle school. As a high school biology teacher, I appreciate freshmen coming in with a good attitude about science. Unfortunately, a number of my students seem to have bad experiences in 8th grade science, so I try my best to convince them that science really is interesting!
Linda
This is a situation I faced also. A few years back were the early years for my school. It was not as `grown up` as it is now. We did not have a perfect curriculum in place. It is later that we adopted a particular software to make the curriculum maps.Most of us were crossover teachers who taught both middle and high school. Textbooks had to be reviewed and there was no specific text for a course.Internet was one of the main resources that came to my rescue. Thanks to all the teachers and the teaching resources out there I could keep my students interested. Exactly that is when I started making my powerpoints, used interactive lessons and animations to clear concepts.
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