New Toys

Before beginning The Paperless Classroom course at Johns Hopkins on Tuesday, I was under the impression I was a relatively technology savvy teacher. I have been humbled and overwhelmed by the amount of resources available for me to use to increase learning in my classroom and it is only the third day of class.

My ego had been inflated by my administrative staff for choosing me to present to the other staff members at our school about ways to infuse technology into the classroom. My PD included instructing teachers how to use  ITunes. Yes, ITunes. And, so far, there has been no use of podcasts, videos, or music reported.

After being introduced to multiple resources I have felt inspired to try and integrate more ways to use these tools in the classroom. Today, I received a package from donorschoose.org which included a camcorder I had ordered. Originally I planned to use the camcorder to solely record myself teaching so that I could watch myself and improve my practices. Yet, when I showed my students our "new toys" we had received, I told them the purpose of the camcorder was for them to create movies with it, to send IReports to CNN, and to document their debates. I had not previously thought through this pitch; it just happened to be what came out of my mouth. And the result was just what my instructor, Shelly Blake Plock (@Teachpaperless) said would happened. Their eyes lit up and they wanted to use this new tool to LEARN and to demonstrate their learning. It really enforced the philosophy in my mind that a classroom without these tools is not productive.