In Practice

With apologies for my eye-strain-inducing introductory blog, here’s a link to a Critical Issue article that while comprehensive (sigh, yes, “long”), was a good read for me this week. It addresses both teaching and learning that take place in classrooms that utilize technology for math and science focuses. I’ll admit to drinking not one, but two large mugs of coffee while reading through it all!

Like our students, many of us are at different stages in how we utilize and integrate technology in our classrooms. Thanks to our diverse backgrounds, interests, prior schema, and resources, some teachers may even yet be finding themselves at a starting point, so the International Society for Technology in Education website may be the resource you’ve been searching for. I’m looking forward to following along as ISTE’s teacher resource, Your Learning Journey, adds more articles and tips.

Finally, a kindergarten ha-ha: After setting up the computers in my technology center, my students were eager to work together to figure out what programs they could use to write, draw, etc. I purposely paired students who were already comfortable using computers with classmates who had less experience. I was called away to help peel the wrappers off of clay at the Artful Expressions center, and overheard the following from one of the computer novices, “No Zach, you don’t get it. It’s not WINDOWS, it’s a computer screen, see?!?!?!?”
Ba-dum-dum-CHING!