Well, it's already March and the school year is half way through. In my last post I wrote about my attempts to integrate technology despite our aging equipment. Here's an update on my progress:
Blogs:
My classroom blogs for Language Arts and Social Studies have been very useful in many ways. I have been posting essay prompts and thought-provoking questions for students to write about and discuss with each other. They also offer their thoughts on historical events, narratives, etc. and provide evidence from text to support their ideas. Since they can view each other's responses, this has been a good way to help some of my more reluctant students to get some ideas from those who are more inclined to articulate what they have learned. The blogs have also been a good place to post links to practice activities, videos, maps, and other content that our school server often blocks. I also post videos that we have watched in class so that students who were absent have access to the same content, and students who struggle with English have a chance to watch it again.
The negative side of expecting students to use these blogs are 1) it causes students to add more screen time to their day; and 2)some students have very sporadic access to the Internet for a variety of reasons, and 3) The more "unmotivated" students still don't find it more fun than any other homework assignment, so they don't want to do it.
I have tried to address these issues by asking parents to monitor students' screen time at home and giving them a time limit for visiting the blog. I only assign material to be used on the blog every one or two weeks. For students who may not have access, I allow them to use the classroom computer (we only have one) during class or after school to respond to the prompts provided during class. They can also write or type their blog comments and give me a hard copy. Another difficulty with the blogs is that the same unmotivated students who do not turn in regular homework do not like to visit the blogs either. What I thought would be a more fun way to do homework for them turned out to be just another homework assignment that they do not want to do. I haven't found a solution to this one yet! Motivating the unmotivated remains a huge challenge!
Collaborative Learning Projects
Using Google Docs, Slides, and Prezi, I showed my students how to work together on the same project from home. Some of them even started using Google Hang Outs to communicate. This has provided a relatively painless way for my middle schoolers to work together from home when they haven't been able to finish parts of their projects during class. So far they have really enjoyed doing these projects. I'm hoping that the novelty doesn't wear off for a long time, since this has helped them produce some very good projects.
On-Line Content
I teach in several different classrooms, and fortunately, each one is blessed with a computer and an overhead projector. For both Language Arts and Social Studies, I'm able to show students a variety of useful videos, slide presentations, maps, Google Earth, interactive "field trips" and games, such as content-related Jeopardy. However, I am careful to not have my students watching a screen every day, since they do enough of that at home already. I limit their classroom screen time to twice a week per class so that they are engaged in more hands-on, interactive activities, some of which are decidedly "low-tech."
Wish List for the Future
I'm still hoping to have either laptops or tablets for each student in each classroom to give them immediate access to content-related materials and presentation software. This would greatly reduce the amount of work they need to do at home, and would increase my ability to have them work in groups, not to mention increased oversight and involvement from me. The school has a computer lab, but it's nearly impossible to take my students there, due to scheduling conflicts with other classes. Therefore, to reach the next step of technology integration, upgrades in equipment will become essential.
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