Technology Integration

I work as the technology integrationist in a rural K-8 school in central Maine. Last summer the school purchased a new laptop cart with 26 MacBooks just for the second floor of the elementary school….that’s Grades 2-4.

I love working with all ages, but today’s 3rd grade lesson on Keynote was amazing. These 10 year olds stunned their teacher with their presentations we made in under an hour. I come to the classes once a week to help teachers learn the tools. The week before, we had saved full size images from a Google image search to our iPhoto libraries. This week, we added the photos through the media browser to a blank Keynote presentation. And some were wanting to add their narrations, too. We added transitions. The students didn’t know what transitions were, but when I showed them the difference between the presentation I had made with and without, they caught on right away. Didn’t they have fun with this. They were much better listeners today, and we accomplished so much.

What I take away from these sessions is from the energy and excitement these kids have. And that energy has prompted me to resume my blogging.

When I did this same exercise with a fourth grade teacher earlier in the week, the teacher decided to have her students use Keynote to demonstrate what they had learned about some subject or another. And with a 6th grade teacher yesterday, I’m now booked with his class to demonstrate the rudiments of presentations. We start off with a limited search, and then we go on to add the photos, full size images. Then on to making the presentation.

One comment the teacher made that has stayed with me was “I’m on overload right now, and won’t be able to remember all of this.” But to that I said, “You have 18 possible teachers in this room right now, so don’t hesitate to ask if any of them know how to do >>>>>>.” This is what I love about the technology. It has enabled students to be teachers and teachers to be students as we discover a need to share the learning and the classroom and switch the locus of control to the learner.

Powerful stuff, technology is.