useful techno toys
This morning on the Early Show (yes, pauly, on cbs...), I watched a very interesting bit about a school district in Arizona. They are beginning to integrate SmartBoards into their classrooms. This is a really fantastic product. {warning: I love this thing--this may start to sound like an ad :)}
Now, I have fairly specific thoughts about the integration of technology in the classroom. I think it's very necessary, but should be implemented in certain ways. For instance, I think every child in the classroom having a computer at all times is ridiculous and distracting. And despite what some educrats say, it doesn't raise the level of education received. What I have seen implemented in a school district near me recently that I really liked was a mobile computer lab. It's made up of a number a laptops connected to a mobile server, all on a rolling cart that can be moved from classroom to classroom as needed. I like this because it gives teachers and students access to computers when useful and teacher-directed without cluttering the room with distractions from hands-on and socio-interactive teaching/activities. Having watched educrats and commentators on American schools laud technology indiscriminantly--hailing anything new and computer-oriented whether or not it brings acual enlightenment into the classroom--I was a little leery when I first started hearing this story. After all, what's wrong with the white board? I like it. But as I watched the SmartBoard in use, I got hooked. Here's a little insight into why:
When I taught 5th/6th grade last year, I had 13 students and 1 computer--mine. Now that's not a huge problem, but I did find, from time to time, interactive lessons online that I would like to have used in my class. The drawback was that I didn't have the computers to handle it. The SmartBoard is linked to the teacher's laptop/desktop and a projector, thus making any material on that computer or the internet available for use in front of the class. That means diagrams, maps, articles, quizzes, puzzles, games, pictures, audio clips, and even films! All of the things that I loved integrating into my classroom, but made soooooo much easier. With the SmartBoard, it is so simple to create an interactive learning experience without sacrificing content or organization. Not only that, but the SmartBoard itself is manipulatable. A teacher or student can "write" directly on it. The text can be moved--actually any object can be moved or manipulated by touching the Board. I was fascinated. As a teacher, I found this one piece of technology a hugely useful addition to the classroom experience. Think about it: while covering the Spanish-American war, a teacher could immediately put up maps of the Battle of San Jaun Hill, draw arrows showing troop movements, even play a video clip of the Rough Riders from the online archives of the Library of Congress. Or on the high school level: covering Oedipus Rex the teacher could use pictures and perspective models of Greek theatres, assembling it one section at a time, play clips of productions, put sections of text on the board for the class to enact.
I don't usually get this excited about new technology, but today's students are so surrounded by it in the lives outside of school, that having technology inside the school is inevitable, and I would admit, even necessary. The next step becomes insuring that the technology we choose to spend money on, what we choose to apply in the classrooms, is useful and unobtrusive. I am really excited about this technology brings into the classroom experience. I hope that as more schools begin to use it, that it will re-awaken the classroom as a conversation. Because more than any other piece of classroom technology that I've seen recently, this one has that potential--to eliven the learning process again by making it more about real things rather than just line drawings on a page of a dull textbook. And it does it without forcing stupid "learning" video games or extraneous projects on the students, or large amounts of extra work on the teacher. In fact, it probably neatly replaces the time spent typing up a worksheet or chart and running all the copies. I hope this gets the attention and push among other school systems that it deserves.