Many of my colleagues can confirm that this is a question I pose often. I think of my own teachers during the years that I was in elementary school, the years when I was the age my students are now. They gave us countless worksheets to complete... first ones that came from the mimeograph that we would hold to our faces so we could inhale that inimitable inky-chemical smell, and then later ones that came to us warm from the Xerox machine. They showed us film strips on the projector, with the accompanying cassette tape; if it was your lucky day, you got to turn the projector knob every time the cassette beeped. They took us to the library, where they taught us to find the information we were looking for in card catalogues, indices, and encyclopedias. They requested our "final copies" be hand-written with pen, in cursive.
Because of the rapidity of technological advancements and the incorporation of these into daily life, the learners my students are, and the learning they do, in many ways, has very little resemblance to my own experiences. The world is a different place. Therefore, though I had many teachers that I loved and learned very valuable lessons from, I cannot be the teachers they were. Worksheets have not been entirely replaced, but if the one I photocopied for homework isn't going to work because we didn't get as far as I expected in the lesson? Give me a minute and a half (tops), and I can google and print out from my computer 27 copies of one that will. We're having a discussion in literacy about fairy tales, and the class wants to know, well, if neither the Brothers Grimm nor Hans Christian Andersen wrote the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, then who did?, let's just take five seconds and look on Wikipedia. If the kids want to know whether a fleece is sufficient for recess, or if they need a "real coat," I'll check the temperature for Ashland on weather.com a few minutes prior to going out. The math class is having trouble remembering the steps of subtraction with regrouping, so on Pinterest the night before, I'll find a song to sing with dance movements that act out each step, and then we'll watch a Youtube video.
Though I am a self-proclaimed technophobe, this is something I realize is not really going to work. Fortunately, my love of teaching and my enthusiasm for really reaching my students trumps this reluctance. I am little by little learning new skills, adopting new philosophies and understandings, and doing what I can for now to make use of the abilities I have. The Internet alone has made me a more resourceful, well-rounded, and creative teacher. If used properly it will do the same for my students. As I become more proficient with new skills and platforms -- blogs, wikis, creating websites, using the projector and the document camera, and on and on and on, everyone in my classroom, students and teacher alike, will be all the better equipped for life in the 21st century.
What a great picture! It's hard for me to believe that you experienced all of those things since much of what you describe is what I experienced. It just goes to show how far technology has come today.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right about the ability to shift gears quickly with the technology available to us. When you think about it, it really is quite remarkable.
It's amazing how life can be made so much easier because of "ye olde internet" :) I've been slow to jump on the Pintrest bandwagon, but each time I do give it a shot, I find some engaging and clever way to teach a lesson. I've found some blogs from very talented teachers that inspire and motivate me to be innovative. So cool to see what's happening in classrooms across the country.
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