My Technology-Infused Classroom

Ta-dah!  My first EVER video blog is here!  I actually enjoyed doing this quite-a-bit more than I anticipated, so I don't think it will be my last.  Check out my definition of a technology-infused classroom inside MY technology-infused classroom! (It's like Inception, but not even close.)

Two things I learned while doing this blog entry:  #1 - I don't know how to control which part of the video shows as the thumbnail, hence, the HORRID image above when this video is not playing.  #2 - It takes a REALLY long time to upload video blogs to YouTube.

How could I ever survive without the Internet?

When I first entered teaching in the mid 90's, the Internet as a classroom tool, did not exist. Today, I can't imagine what I would do without it.  My classroom is equipped with wireless Internet and each of my students has a MacBook Air. I have an interactive whiteboard, projector and an Apple TV.

A Typical Class

Students working doing group research to answer
specific questions as a pre-reading activity.

(1) Before class, students often use the Internet to check their grades on Powerschool, our school's web-based grading system. (2) I am taking attendance using the same program as they are doing so. (3) Each class begins with me projecting a question of the day from the College Board on the board and asking students to answer the questions at their desk.  Correct answers are put into a drawing for monthly prizes.  This is when homework is collected.  (4) Students may often hand in paper or electronic copies of their work. I log into Airdrop and some students "give" me their assignments there.  Others quickly send me links to Google docs or send me attachments in email.  Airdrop and Google Docs are new to us, so until everyone gets used to using them, I accept assignment from all formats.  Hopefully, we will get to the point where I have everything on Google Drive to streamline the process.  Once homework is handed in we generally work on text.  Most of our texts are available both in print and online format.  (5) Students that may not have brought their texts will use their computers to follow along.  During the readings, we review our objectives, discuss the rhetorical strategies used by the authors and ask questions about the readings. (6) Usually, there are items within the text that students to use the Internet to find the answers. The second half of class is spent doing work, applying their knowledge in some way.  Often, those assignments asks them to compare the ideas of different rhetors and then refine their own ideas about the topic.  (7) They may use the Internet to find supporting materials or to research other points of view. (8) They will then create their documents in Google Docs submit them through Doctopus where I can view and grade them using a Goobric.

Students working at the Washburn-Norlands Living
History Center Library, scanning documents to upload. 

And that's a typical class.  As you can see, we have used the Internet around 8 times for different reasons. If we didn't have Internet, everything that engages students in the learning would be missing. The Internet is not just a tool in my classroom.  It is a necessity.

An Atypical (but hopefully some day typical) Class

This year, we have a class that I team-teach called "Hands on History". I work mostly with the technology for the course. This new class takes students beyond regular Internet research by having them actually create the information that other historians will use for research.  In partnership

with the Maine Humanities Council and the Maine Historical Society, our students are scanning primary-source documents from the civil war into an online exhibit on the Maine Memory Network. The irony of the project is that much of the process takes place at in a Civil War Era historical mansion, so there is no Internet. Students actually use my iPhone as a hot spot in order to upload images. They are CREATING Internet resources. It is unlike anything we have ever done before. They use scanners, digital cameras, do transcribing and research to upload their final projects for the world to see.  The students are going beyond using the Internet to CREATING the Internet.  It is a powerful way to learn and is unbelievably satisfying to teach!

Goobric: Assessing Student Work

This is a video that explains Goobric, an add-on to Doctopus that allows me to grade student assignments right in Google Docs!