The reading for this week poses a lot of questions. Have we become too obsessed with using technology for the sake of technology in the classrooms? What happens if ESKOM fails us and we can't use all the tech toys we wanted to? Can we use the digital tools of this day and age without wires and electrons and 1's and 0's?
However, it also got me thinking; how can I use these tools, whether ESKOM dependent or not, in my science classroom? And, more importantly, how can I use it in such a way that it helps the learners engage with the content, rather than it just being a case of me making a couple of random PowerPoint slides and patting myself on the back for a job well done?
(Oh, PowerPoint, the opium of the modern teacher!)
Not all of these questions are easy to answer. The reading makes a good argument for not just blindly waiting for a deus ex machina to arise from our dull, badly designed PowerPoint presentations and save our subjects. It cautions that, while the tools are there, the pedagogy doesn't always work with them.
Surely, though, it isn't all bad. And it's not. There are a number of things we can take from the electronic world and hack so that it allows us to cut the chord, and engage with our subject matter in a way that brings new meaning to what it is we are discussing in the classroom. A great example from the reading is the one about text mining. One of my favourite shortcuts is Ctrl-F (Or whatever the equivalent is for Apple fanboys. You know who you are.). Who needs to waste precious seconds skimming through random text? Ctrl-F, baby! The words are even highlighted for you. Yet, I think that's the point of the text mining example. Ctrl-F disconnects you from the text. With a little more effort, you can easily do the same with a highlighter and a book. (Or a book book, as IKEA calls it.) The advantage of the second method is that you are bound to bump into context at some point in the exercise. Even if you don't, it is much easier to go back in the book, look for the words you have highlighted, and read the whole paragraph.
So yes, we can use our electronic tools for good, and we can adapt some of them in case of load shedding. But now, what about in my own science classroom?
This is a little more difficult to answer, and it is something I'll have to really think about. What do we use electronics for in the classroom? PowerPoint and YouTube, PowerPoint and YouTube. Wash, rinse, repeat. I don't know. Maybe I can have learners write their prac reports on blogs and read and comment on others. Maybe they can make vlogs documenting the progress of their research projects.
Maybe I'll learn something clever from the comments.
Truely enjoyed this blog. As a future English teacher, the spell check did you well. I might be too old school, but going digital scares me. But having the pedagogy line up with the class room sounds like a good idea. Thank you for this take on the article. Keep blogging, even just for fun.
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