Teaching in a New Age

Day Six- May 17, 2010 8am-2:30

Something that really interests me in the world of teaching is technology. I feel that in recent years technology has made its way into classrooms and has had a huge impact on the way teaching is done. For LFCDS it is very important. All the classrooms are hooked up with a projector and a computer that you can use to project any image you so chose.

Whether it be a website that helps kids understand a concept more, or a program used to project notes up on the screen, technology is important. Back in the times when blackboards and whiteboards were the only form of note taking it was tedious for teachers to re-teach and rewrite every lesson. Now with computers you can write out a lesson and easily access it when ever you need it. Whether it be 10 years from when you made it or the next day when someone asks if you can go over the notes again, it is always there. The computer notes are a huge impact on the way Mr Sperling teachers, and how many teachers teach. When the lesson has been made you can reuse these lessons for the next year, making planning less of an issue for a lot of teachers. You can also send out these notes to kids who missed that day or just want to reread them.

I'm not saying technology is all good, in fact I personally think that it is starting to get overwhelming. Some students, at least in my mind, would just not take notes knowing that the teacher will send it to them later. Why waste my time right? Wrong! Most educators know that the best way for kids to understand something is to have them hear it, write it, speak it, read it! These are so critical in teaching that if we get rid of the writing it, it could really take away from the students learning experience. Although, with balance and diligence we can create a system where we can both harness the power and ease of technology, while keeping the simplicity and old-fashioned-ness of past teachers.

Quick wrap up of the day. The 7th grade advanced class came in to class ready to learn some calculus and they did a fine job. I gave them a quiz right off the bat to both scare them a bit for fun and to help them understand that it isn't so intimidating after all. I gave them a basic critical thinking quiz that had to do with finding the derivative. Then I also did a brief 10 minute lesson further explaining how we find derivatives and why we find them. It was quite interesting and the asked some thought provoking questions. The 8th grade honors course learned how to convert a quadratic equation into vertex form by using CTS! Pretty awesome stuff, stuff I didn't even know I could do.