An Article by Sara Kajder

I am filled with great joy this morning as I spend my time pouring over articles and books written with the specific intent of showing teachers how they can use new technologies to engage their students in learning.  The article I’m currently reading is entitled: Unleashing Potential with Emerging Technologies,  by Sara Kajder.  The article begins by exposing a very common misconception about what effectively using technology in the classroom looks like.  The author is introduced to a teacher (described by the principal) as someone who “gets how to use technology with kids.”  Sadly, what was happening in this teacher’s classroom was little more than a rehashing of a traditional English lesson.  These particular students were fortunate to have laptops which they carried throughout the day (instead of text books), but these laptops stayed closed through most of the lesson.  After the traditional ‘going on’s’ of an English class transpired the students were instructed to open a document on a network server, resave it with their initials (to avoid overwriting each other’s work) and finally to make comments on the document, referencing a book they were currently reading.  Clearly, this is a new cover on the same old book; an educational project that has been happening for at least a hundred years, but spiffed up with a superficial stamp of technology.

The author goes on to give voice to my thoughts about what we should really be doing with technology.  The power behind technology is that our students are already intrinsically motivated to use it.  Most kids chat online, many read and write blogs.  The ubiquitous ipod has lead to the phenomenon of pod-casting - where audio and video data can automatically be downloaded to a computer and then transferred to a portable audio device.    Why not hook into what they are already doing?  Kajder writes of teachers with classroom blogs, where there are no “required number of pages” or “mandatory font sizes” instead the focus is on what the student needs or wants to say.    Posts are written by the students (they must be approved by the teacher before they go live)  In one particular classroom the teacher uses a daily recorder to summarize and synthesize the content of the day’s lesson.  Then other students react to that with comments, which naturally leads to discussion and debate.   Their thoughts can easily be enhanced with photos, audio, and video or any combination of digital multimedia resources. 

Similarly there is an inherent usefulness to using pod-casts for audio intense learning.  To that end I intend to teach homogeneous classes this year on pod-casting.  LOTE teachers will be able to create vocab lists that the students will be able to hear as well as see.  Setting short phrases to music, will allow the teacher to subconsciously instill the natural stresses of foreign words into their students.  Music teachers will be able to excerpt musical concepts from classical compositions to show their students  the natural evolution of music, or illustrate a theoretical concept.  Choir directors will be able to create virtual “practice CD’s” for students to learn their parts with.  The possibilities are only as limited as the teachers’ imaginations. 

The key to approaching instruction in this way, is to listen to what are students are telling us.  How do they spend their time when they are not at school?  They are writing, they arelistening to music and to pod-casts…so how do we commandeer that for our own purposes?