Technology (or lack there of) In The Classroom

I want you to take a second and imagine(or watch if you have one) the day of an 8th grader. An alarm goes off and they reach over and turn off the alarm that was most likely on their phone. They sit up and decide to get ready for another stimulating day at their local middle school. While they get ready they might listen to their iPod or mp3 player. They then hop in your car or on the bus and will most likely pull out their phone and send a text message or two before they get to school. Fast forward to the end of the school day. They get back in your car or hop back on the bus and they pull out the cell phone and start texting about the days events. When they get home, the boys might jump on the Xbox while the girls hop on Facebook or some other multimedia device. After a night of watching TV and playing on the computer they will finally get ready for bed and set their alarm on their phone to repeat another day. Now I want to focus on what happened in the middle while they were at school. More than likely one of the first phrases they heard from their teacher was "Get out a pencil and a piece of paper..."

A pencil and a piece of paper!?!?!? We are on the eve of 2012 and yet we are still using the same tactics in a classroom as they used hundreds of years ago! I recently listened to a guest lecturer who manages her classroom with almost NO paper. Whether it is classroom management or lesson planning, her entire class is run through various multimedia tools. She shared with us more than a dozen resources that she uses and how they work. I am going to share with you a few of my favorites in hopes that you will look into them and see how they could help your child or your classroom.

Live Binders

Live binders is pretty self explanatory. It is a resource that allows you to create an online binder complete with tabs and other bookmarks. You can create binders for each subject areas and standards and you can include videos, images, and various other tools that you might use to differentiate in your classroom. Free to use and pretty user friendly.

Edmodo

From Edmodo's "About Page"

Edmodo provides a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. Our goal is to help educators harness the power of social media to customize the classroom for each and every learner.

Edmodo is like Facebook but it is safe and secure and gives the teacher power over what is posted and what is seen to the students. I have seen it used to update class assignments as well as get information out to parents who may lose track of information sheets given to students. This is a great tool for students and teachers who are interested in social networking but allows them to do so in an educational environment and in a safe and secure manner.

Classroom DoJo

Classroom Dojo is a classroom management website that allows you to enter your class(or multiple classes) and mange your behavior in an interactive manner for all your kids to see. In elementary school, kids have some sort of "Green, Yellow, Red" behavior system where "red" means bad and "green" is good. This is very similar to that but updated for older students. Each student has a virtual avatar with a virtual seat and the teacher can give each student a positive(green) point along with a positive description or a negative(red) point along with a negative description. Classroom Dojo will keep track of each students behavior history and show a pie chart complete with what each student did and how often they performed a certain behavior. This resource allows each student to track their own behavior and hold themselves accountable for their actions. Teachers can use this tool to create a history for each student and can show parents or administrators how a student has been acting over a period of time.


I hope you have enjoyed this blog. Please feel free pass it on and add your thoughts!!