Twain on a Time Line

There is no question, from my experience, that spreadsheet technology within the classroom is most often utilized for "show and tell" purposes, when employed at all. The most personally relevant reason for this is an apparent difficulty in transferring the format to the language arts domain. There are not many useful examples of applicable lessons floating around, and most of the ones that I encountered deal specifically with skills such as spelling and vocabulary, which seem limited in their flexibility. Spreadsheets could certainly benefit students in verbal development, but as far as knowledge generation...remains to be seen. Presenting an unusual format for word recognition and vocabulary practice would provide a means for motivation, but the finite options for such tasks could also be achieved by other means.

I did locate one intriguing lesson plan that combines several disciplines and culminates with a pretty involved writing assignment. I would utilize it as a bit of a research assignment, which would require exposure to either a group of related (or unrelated) authors, or even the collection of writings of a specific author. The students would transfer the data to a spreadsheet, and would then create what is referred to as a Bio-graph, which could offer a meaningful representation of a genre of literature, the life and work of one author, related time lines, etc. The possibilities for such an assignment are exciting and much more varying than the spelling or vocab tasks, and they could be introduced pretty easily to several grade levels/achievement levels. The plan in its original form directs students to interview each other, but I would be more apt to include it with the study of literary periods or specific authors. One benefit of such an approach is that the spreadsheet format could be learned at the beginning of the year, with multiple uses parallelling multiple units. This seems to be a unique approach that incorporates technology appropriately, and it is probably more productive than assigning a chapter outline. Exciting!

Lesson at: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=1021

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Currently I am filling in for the LD teacher at my school, so integrating technology into the classroom is sometimes difficult, but often interesting. I think that students with special needs usually appreciate the change of pace a bit more than traditional students, and are inspired to demonstrate that they, too, are technologically savvy. We have three desktops in our room, which seems like an inadequate amount, but in our small group setting it works. Most of what I have had students do involves simple fact-checking related to class discussions/assignments- although most of them are quite adept at related tasks, sometimes the temptations of games and surfing are too strong. Because they require such a high degree of individual support, and because I have but 2-3 periods per day with most of them, much of our tech use is contingent upon what their other teachers have assigned them.

I'm sure many teachers can echo the sentiment that a limited district budget prevents our system from truly taking advantage of all that technology can offer us, but I believe my school does a really good job of providing professional development opportunities related to tech-learning. Teachers have various workshop opportunities, and many inservices are directly related to further development of relevant skills. One area I would like to see us improve upon is in assessment. We have a brand new school with many modern benefits (increased # of computers, labs, etc.), but we might lack a universal focus of what we should do with all of it. I would be interested to know what the rate of use is in this school compared to the last, which had very limited capabilities. Obviously you can't really tell teachers to use the media center ten times a semester or else, and I think many of the faculty are somewhat reluctant to alter past practices, which is understandable. The average age of our faculty is relatively high, and old habits die hard, I guess.

Hello all- welcome to my first blogging experience! Hopefully you will find some form of inspiration, be it thought, humor, or outrage. Thanks for stopping by...