Technology Integration » Moving The Cheese

Expanding Information

Brad Edwards — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:05:24 +0000

Two weeks ago, a 6th grade science teacher and I worked with his students as they learned about the solar system. On of our first tasks was learning how to modify a search. We googled the phrase “solar system.” On Tuesday noon, the Google search gave 40 million sites. The next day at 10 AM, we worked with a different group. Then, Google search gave 40,200,000 sites. Three hours later, the number was up to 41 million. This morning, two weeks later, I did another google search and found 43,100,000 sites. Makes me wonder about the incredibly increasing information stacks out there. (at the University of Maine, as I am sure at other universities and colleges, we called the library book shelves the “stacks.”)

Such expanding information is the reason why we need to teach our students about smart searching. Some of us digital immigrants are still wondering where the card files went to! -:)

Change: about keyboarding

Brad Edwards — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:39:24 +0000

No, this isn’t an ad for a presidential candidate. It’s a summary of reactions from our curriculum meeting this afternoon. We met to discuss how keyboarding was going to be included in the curriculum….and the technology coordinator and I decided to take that as a diving board into the pool of what we are going to be able to do next year with new equipment just arrived along with what we are already doing with our software. He presented several Keynote projects completed by 4th graders on their bird projects just finished last month. I spoke about the substitution of a computer for a typewriter and that we needed to do more. With the mimeo and the document camera and our comments about our direction with technology, we decided to focus keyboarding on grades 3 and 4 with minor focus on those needing a brush up in grade 5 as noted by the teacher. We also agreed that it was important to circulate around the room to note posture and the use of home row. I felt that the meeting was good in that after next year, the 5th graders will be able to do much, much more in developing their technology skills.

Moving the cheese

Brad Edwards — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:48:46 +0000

We all go down the same hole for the cheese. Just like those lab rats, if the cheese is moved, there’s confusion and frustration. Just moving a pile of papers from the kitchen counter to another location causes serious brow furrowing in my household. Let’s face it, it’s easier to do tasks repetitively rather than recreating a process, even ones that are flawed. Especially teachers who have little time for invention, dusting off last year’s lesson plans and ditto masters (remember those??) was a piece of cake compared to developing something new all over again.The greatest challenge for technology integrationsts is to enlist a teacher’s help in moving his/her cheese. So how can this happen? Teachers have to want to move it. They need to know why they should change, even if that change is slight.