Want to hear a great way to spend a day? I’m hanging out at the CUE conference and spending the day being approached by teachers who are sharing with me interesting ways that they’re using technology in the classroom.
I’m one of four Discovery Employees that peopl eneed to get a stamp from in order to try to win a USB drive. So I’m hanging out at the tables and every few minutes a teacher comes up to me and shares some way that they’re integrating technology. You can’t believe the stories I’m hearing. I did grab a few sound clips already but I plan to grab a bunch more throughout the day tomorrow once I get my recording device charged back up (yes, yet another battery issue). I’m hearing about some amazing things teachers are doing though and discovering all sorts of new websites that I never knew about before.
It really is astonishing how many teachers are doing really incredibly innovative things in their schools, but don’t realize just how cutting edge they are. One teacher just shared with me a video (on their video iPod of course) of an animation that they created using common children’s toys. Think claymation, but with action figures instead. He told me that the students put about 400 photos into one animation, which lasted a few minutes. It was really something else. I’m not sure he had any idea just how interesting projects like that are to other teachers around the world. Educators could learn so much from hearing how he created the project and what lessons he learned while doing so.
I also met a teacher who did an entire recycling project using flickr, del.icio.us, blogs and all sorts of web 2.0 goodies. Oh yeah, and she did it with third graders. THIRD graders. Of course, I can’t wait to see what these students are doing when they hit 8th grade! Seriously though, just further proof that these technologies are appropriate for all grade levels.
I can’t tell you just how many people told me that they were incorporating digital media into Powerpoint presentations. Everybody had their own little spin on it (heard about a great biographies lesson idea), but what blew me away was how many people were doing it with first and second grade students. If students can learn Powerpoint in first and second grade, then why on earth are so many schools wasting time teaching it in eighth grade? If they don’t know it by then, then they certainly ought to be able to teach it to themselves! Regardless, I love the idea of students learning to be effective presenters from the very beginning of their own educational journeys.
It amazes me that first and second graders have no problems with PowerPoint, but that high school teachers are still seeing freshmen arriving without these “basic” skills. It would appear that schools are NOT spending time teaching it in 8th grade… at least not in all the 8th grades that feed into our high school. Where is the gap?
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