Kicking the Tires of Technologyin the Classroom
Recently I have assigned an internet based research project to my economics class. The project design is to introduce the students to the power of social bookmarking and the way in which browser tools, firefox extensions in particular, can assist the students in sifting through the information and making sense of the voluminous amount of information that they will explore. The assignment asks the students to form an economic hypothesis based on the upcoming holiday season. In a nutshell, students are to choose a product or service, and state whether or not that product or service will achieve market expectations. The students will utilize delicious.com as a hub of social bookmarking, along with extensions such as clipmarks to gather their information. In presenting this information to the students, I became aware of several reactions based on their body language. A number of students appeared to be truly excited. When I modeled the usage and power of several tools, several light bulbs began to go off. This of course is as exciting to me as their classroom teacher, as it was for them as students. However, I would be misleading the readers if I did not include several students who appeared to be overwhelmed. I explained to the class that change often brings with it four emotions (ANGER, SADNESS, DENIAL, AND ACCEPTANCE) that may inhibit a student's willingness to put forth an honest effort with an open mind. My question goes out to anyone interested in assisting me and those students who may be overwhelmed. How can a teacher, trying to introduce these new methods, engage a larger portion of the student body?
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8 comments:
Thank you for the full update on what is needed to be done for this particular project. I like the way you seem to utilize your resources. You are doing a great job in your teaching. Keep up the spectacular work.
rsgender - I can sympathize with you regarding your comments on structure. I would find it a little frustrating if I were in your position. However, I truly believe that the sooner you gain your independence from your teacher,the further along you will go with these technologies.
Paroune - I agree with your last comment to rsgenders. I have found that as I have broken away to engage in this project by myself, I have found many new, exciting things. The key is for the students to experiment a bit more, without being afraid to find something that will really knock their socks off. I really believe that students are afraid of how much of their time this will really take. There are assignments to keep up with for other classes, so how will they have so much time to successfully complete this assignment. Just be patient with the students, Paroune, and they will eventually come around.
I like the whole idea of taking the classroom to the internet and preparing us for how many colleges are starting to assign work. I can see how some students become overwhelmed with blogs but as soon as you understand what is going is it really is not that hard. If you want to get more students involved I think that you should just have students experiment with the internet more and just let the students adapt.
Mr. Aroune, Your idea on this project is insightful, the more I think about it. You are introducing students into a whole new world of learning and technology but allowing them to do so on a subject we have chosen for ourselves. While is does at times seem to be overwhelming, I think i will be able to accomplish it. I know if will later benefit us in teh future in college and even in our careers of the future. I believe it is a good idea, but it risky because some students do not have computers at home, and doing it in school is not the same. If Iroquois were like Niagara Falls, where each student is provided with their own laptops, it would be another story. While some may complain about this, projects such as these need to start somewhere. Projects such as these may even promote more school to give their students laptops.
Working with this new technology in high school will benefit ourselves because we will have a jump start for college. Others who get into college and never used these resources will struggle at first and will waste time learning how to operate these websites. For our benefit, we will understand how to use this technology and finish our projects, with more time for other objectives.
EBoobP Very good blog! Thanks!
TnVZRq write more, thanks.
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