Technology in the Classroom

Three weeks until the DeLeT program starts up. I've been thinking about my strengths and what I bring to the teaching profession. First, there's my knowledge and personal experience. I've done a lot of things over the years and picked up a few skills that might apply well to a classroom. There's my law degree and years of practice as an attorney. There's the writing and communication skills necessary to publish a novel. I also have a deep interest in science and the constant stream of things we human beings keep learning about the world. And I love technology.

When I was eight or nine, my favorite show was "Battlestar Galactica"--the old-school version with Dirk "Face-Man" Benedict as Starbuck and Lorne "Feed Your Dog Alpo" Greene as Commander Adama. One episode showed a classroom on Galactica where every student had a desktop computer. The shot only lasted about fifteen seconds but it made a deep impression on me. I wanted with all my heart to be taking lessons in that class instead of in a boring school where the most advanced technology was the mimeograph machine. I used to daydream about living in a world where computers were so common that they'd let kids use them, or encourage kids to use them, or even require kids to use them. But that was a crazy science fiction world that surely wouldn't exist in my lifetime--except that now it does!

I was born three decades too early to learn in a Galactica classroom, but I'm still young enough to teach in one. In fact, one of my first substitute teaching assignments was for a Technology Education class that actually did have a desktop computer for every student in the room. It was a dream come true--or would have been, if the lesson plans required the use of those computers in any way at all. Instead I was supposed to have the students read a chapter in their Technology textbooks and write out a bunch of discussion questions, on lined paper with Number 2 pencils, just like we used to do back in the Stone Age days of 1978. The computers might as well have been the world's most expensive paperweights. Even worse, the Technology textbooks were 10 years old and laughably obsolete. The students probably learned nothing at all that day but what I came away with was this: Having technology in the classroom doesn't magically improve the learning environment. Technology has to be managed, applied, and used effectively--and I can totally do that!

Part of my experience is in website design, online community development, online course development, collaboration, and innovation using technology. And I've been reading about things that some teachers are doing that go beyond even the Galactica model of curriculum design. If they don't have enough computers to go around, some schools are using PSPs and personal devices with Internet access. They're loading language lessons onto iPods for later review. They're having students create podcasts, blogs, videos, and multimedia presentations. They're using Twitter as an educational tool. They're creating classroom wikis. They're using print on demand technology to make their own textbooks.

My soon-to-be classroom may not be located on a starship, but with a bit of imagination the sky's the limit!