Stepping Stones

As indicated in my checklist, it is important to know where the students are at with regard to technology (perhaps this is something that should be addresses by curriculum writers?). While this might be more of an elementary school problem, I know that I have also had students in grade nine that were not overly tech savvy either- either because of little exposure or no desire to use it. It is important to know the developmental stages of technology in order to know how to progress. For example, if the students have never even made a power point presentation before, then it is unlikely that he or she will be able to make a movie complete with editing, sound effects, and animations (although iMovie does make it dreadfully easy to do so). Therefore, it is important to introduce "basic" programs and tools to the students before diving into big projects. Furthermore, once students learn the basic way of thinking with technology, the rest follows intuitively for them.

The basics:
Word Processing: MS Word- Yes, very basic. But have you thought about how this can be limiting? For example, if spellcheck is left on, two things happen:
1. Students don't have to recognize a wrong word
2. The whole time students are typing they are told, "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong."

While the latter point might be true, if students are negatively reinforced every time they type "reinforced" incorrectly, then they might disengage from using tech tools.

When writing a short story, start with: "Stop after two paragraphs, then then have students read those two paragraphs and make them more descriptive, add transition words, etc." Word will then keep track of the editors with different colours. While collaborating is important in any class, it is highly effective in the gifted classroom, as students feel comfortable with sharing and striving to improved (most students, anyway). Furthermore, by writing a little at a time (2-3 paragraphs), and then stopping fixes the problem quickly without irritating the hell out of the students.

Other ideas for word processing include:
1. Use the writer in residence at the library
2. Turn the documents into blog posts. My students recently posted on Posterous and it turned out wonderfully. Students researched an activist, and then posted this research (which they synthesized and wrote), embedded a video or audio clip, and a picture. Then students would post questions on the other blogs, and respond after that. This was an easy project for students to do, even if they were not tech savvy.
Furthermore, our blog is closed to only people with a password (a good decision if you have students or parents who are iffy about leaving a digital footprint- more on this in subsequent posts).

Another initial phase step on the tech journey is to familiarize students with the teacher's virtual classroom and/ or wiki (or other website). Tell the students to post a comment on the discussion board, add their birthday to the calendar, upload a file, add a link, etc. These are all simple steps, and seem trivial, but they are baby steps to making students feel comfortable with their digital progress. Plus it makes for easy homework for them and even easier marking for the teacher.

Coming up next...Where Is My Mind?