In the words of Karl Fisch, “Shift Happens.”

There's been a dramatic shift in the way in which I incorporate technology into my classroom.  In one of Alan November's handouts he asks, "Is technology being used as a $2000 pencil?  Pencils are cheap, but technology is not.  If all you are going to use technology for is to replace a pencil, don't bother.  Put the school's money elsewhere.  Effective uses of technology allow teachers and students to do things that would have been impossible five years ago.  We can easily make connection with people and resources around the world that will positively impact our students."

I feel that I've been able to shift the use of technology in my classroom.  My students and I are no longer use technology as a glorified pencil, but we're using it to interact with the world.

This year we collaborated with schools from around the world on project.  I posted the project on globalschoolnet.org in August and over ten schools signed up to participate. The project was called From Our Region To Yours.  We wrote about our region and students from other schools wrote about their region.  I found that my students’ writing improved when they had to write for an authentic audience.

To help each other learn, my students created screencasts which provided tutorials about challenging match concepts and posted them to our school’s website.  Students who struggled with homework, were able to access tutorials from their home computers.  In addition to helping struggling students, the screencasts helped us in an unforeseen way.  I don’t know about your students, but my students often resist writing about math and explaining their thinking.  This was the first time my students were excited to explain their thinking and anxious to get each step just right.

The most exciting technology endeavor was making podcasts.  My students were excited to write and read scripts that would be presented to the whole world.  They enjoyed reading comments that people left for them on itunes (Search for Studio 203) and watching their popularity rate increase.

I will continue to use technology to communicate and learn from the outside world.  I am interested in learning how you have used technology to expand the walls of your classroom.

You too can get feedback from youtube

I often look at youtube for how-to videos. I learned how to change a bike tire, braise chicken and fold a fitted sheet in a manner that would make Martha Stewart proud. These videos are great, but today I witnessed a whole new way of learning on youtube. Youtube can be interactive.

This morning logged on to youtube to see how I can improve my crawl stroke technique. I saw the typical how-to swim videos, which I found helpful. Then I noticed something that I never saw before .… video responses. People posted their own swim videos and other people offered them suggestions.

This would never have happened without the Internet. Ten years ago you could have bought a how-to swim DVD, and learned how to improve your stroke, but you would have no means of soliciting feedback from thousands of strangers.

I am amazed at the power of web 2.0. (Not amazed enough to post a video of me in a bathing suit.) But where else can people communicate with people they’ve never met and get individualized feedback?

I thought about how someone could use this idea in his/her classroom. Students are more likely to listen to feedback from their peers or anonymous people than their teachers. Then I was thinking that Bill Endslow is already doing this in his classroom with his monologue project. Without the Internet, there would be no easy way for his class to collaborate with a drama class in Florida. It’s great to see teachers from our cohort leading the way.