Gimmick or Tool?

            For my district I grew up in when you entered the fourth grade you went to a new building and new placement. When entering the new school there was a special program that was called T.R.E.E. at the time I didn’t know what the acronym stood for and all I can recall now is that it was Technology, research, enrichment and I have no idea what the last “e” was. Considering the first part of the acronym to be technology they must have put a high value on it and looking back and comparing the program I was in and the experience of the average fourth through sixth grader in my district I defiantly got a different education.

            The program did make me an expert PowerPoint maker but more importantly it did start the seeds of how to become a great researcher. The type of instruction that I got on how to evaluate a source wasn’t given to my other peers till high school. This gap of digital literacy wasn’t as bad or detrimental to the students as not being exposed to reading until five years after pre-school but it did show in the presentations that were given in high school. You would see students having slides with black font on a really dark background, ineffective transitions, or paragraphs on the slides instead of bullet points. The worst would be a claim that was from an unreliable source that leads to a very questionable point. Educating student on how to navigate information is very important lesson that we as educators can pass on. Just as important the tools we use.

Back to when I was a cute fourth grader, we had smart boards for each grade level. Just keep in mind I was in the fourth grade in 2000, smart boards were brand new and there was very little professional support for the gadget. The teachers would attempt to use the smart board in the classroom but something always went wrong may it be that smart board freezing up or the lesson plan became more about the gadget than the content. In my eyes the smart board was very much a gadget rather than a tool for education. This belief was later supported by the fact that in my high school every room was fitted with one but rarely was it ever used for other than a screen for the projector. It wasn't until my sophomore year of college nearly a decade later did I see the smart board used to promote the content in the classroom. I was amazed by how great it worked with the students and in tandem with the ELMO devices it is a main stay for most teachers these days.

            The smart board debacle still sticks in my head as a case of technology for technology sake then actually advancing the class. It either took a decade for the technology to become bug free or it took a decade for educators to catch up to the technology. Either statement shows that adopting technology is a very high financial burden for a school. With all of this said in class we have talked about free tools that can provided the same desired results as an expensive alternative. The Animoto program is a great way for teachers and students to make a presentation or introduce a topic. Similar programs like Animoto, offer a very low risk to educators while offering new ways of presenting “old” content. It will be interesting to see how technology changes the classroom in the coming years.