For the inventory that we assembled, I was really impressed with
how many different facets are touched upon by the technologies we used, from planning to delivery to activities. Equipment like
SmartBoards and computers instinctively come to mind as some of the strongest
and most effective examples of classroom technology, but I underestimated how
important supportive technologies would be. After completing the spreadsheet,
it really struck me that I’d be relying much more on resources to design
lessons and communicate with my students than I initially anticipated –
particularly in collecting advice from other teachers’ blogs and pulling data
in to reshape approaches in delivering my instruction.
We all brought forth some great in-class hands on activities
and demos. Some technologies made getting more traditional equipment like
microscopes into the classroom easier and more efficient. Some technologies enhanced
or completely replaced the way that hands-on labs can be tackled, particularly
the PasCo gear like dataloggers and motion capture devices, which empower
students to collect more accurate data in a less tedious manner. Other
resources like a SmartBoard paired with some of the great online demo libraries
we found will really go a long way towards illustrating concepts more
effectively during lecture and capture the students’ attention. A lot of these
technologies I’m already observing being put to great use in the classroom, and
I’m looking forward to asking my teachers what sort of resources they pull from
when lesson planning.
Brian,
ReplyDeleteI noticed you seem to have a bit of a thing for the Smartboard. I also believe that it is a technology that can be beneficial, not only to Physics teachers, but to teachers of virtually any content area. Math teachers can use it to model examples of mathematical arithmetic, Music teachers can use it to display and interact with pieces of music, and English teachers can make use of the Smartboard's "chalkboard like" qualities like highlighting texts displayed on the Smartboard or underlining; makes the job a lot less messy than chalk. Looking at our inventories, overall, we have found so many technologies that I would love to use in my classroom. When I was in high school we used technologies, but not as many as there are available to us. Looking back, I wish my teachers used as many technologies as we have found in only a week or so.
Brian, glad to see you are already making connections to your science classroom.
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