Tech Trek

One of the most interesting things about teaching is its development alongside the evolution of technology.  Education is constantly changing because technology is always improving and giving teachers new tools that can be put to use in the classroom.  Smart educators embrace the ever-changing nature of education, and look for ways to improve their lesson plans with new and fun technology that students can really get into.  Just in my own experiences in education I have seen teachers go from overhead projectors to PowerPoint to Prezi to YouTube. The landscape has become more interactive and students respond much better to these new forms of learning.

Recourses, with the help of the Internet, have become nearly infinite, and looking over some of them provided in the Tech Trek a lot of them are really fun and interesting.

From a teaching perspective sites like Pinterest can be great for new and veteran teachers.  Teachers want their colleagues to do well and are therefore more than happy to share their experiences, their lesson plans, and dos and don’ts with each other.  A quick search on Pinterest can give you great ideas for lessons, examples of graphic organizers and worksheets, and hands on activities for tactile learners.

There are also great resources for students.  Sites like Shelfari are great for students that love to read and for students that might need help getting into reading.  They can share their reading lists and talk about books the liked and ones they might not recommend for a friend.  We don’t always have a lot of time to read, so Shelfari is a great way to research a book and make sure you pick one you are certain to enjoy.

Another resource that really caught my eye was Comic Master.  This site allows students to create their own short graphic novels.  I love the fact that graphic novels are working their way into the Language Arts curriculum and I think they can be a tremendous asset to visual learners.  Some of us need pictures to learn, and this is fact is not always addressed.  Comic Master allows students to create characters, actions, and situations that can really hammer home new concepts.  I think it would be interesting to see if students could create a visual essay using a site like this.  Graphic novels are a way to reach artistic students, and ones that aren’t all that fond of reading and writing.

It’s will be interesting to see how much farther technology in the classroom gets pushed by the time I’m 10 and 20 years into my career.  It’s both fascinating and bewildering to think about.  In 20 years the classroom might look nothing like it does today, but I like that.  When things don’t change they become boring and stale, and teaching should never be either of those things.

For my part I will continue to explore new technology for the classroom and implement it wherever possible.  I didn’t go through all of the suggested links, just the ones that jumped out at me; and so my Tech Trek continues.