Here are some tech things you could do with your students. Not everything may be feasible (ie cost factors) or appropriate (ie security or privacy issues):
- some of the things we’re already doing,
- some of the things we’re thinking of doing, and,
- some of the things are just wishful thinking, but great ideas have to start somewhere…
How to do your integrate technology into the curriculum? Do you have any ideas to add to the list?
Laptop Class Set
- Get a company to donate a set of laptops for the class when they upgrade their equipment. (The business may receive a charitable donation tax credit.)
- Set up a Wi-Fi hotspot in your classroom so students can blog online during independent reading and writing workshops.
- Purchase digital copies of textbooks for a paperless classroom. Use text reading software (ie Kurzweil) to highlight and take notes in the textbook.
Non-traditional reading and writing
- Teach students the differences between formal, informal, and colloquial language and explore text messages, chat rooms, and msn-speak as forms of colloquial language.
- Assess the evolving nature of language and develop word attack skills by examining how words are accepted in everyday language (or in the dictionary). For example, Google is now a noun and a verb in common use.
- Use text reading software (eg Kurzweil) to allow students to access difficult texts.
blog
- Ask students to create personal blogs as a means of posting their writing portfolios.
- Explore how Google is a popularity contest. Post the work to an ezine article directory to understand how to build inbound links. Post comments on other blogs to create inbound links.
- Explore copyright issues. Posting work to a blog or ezine article directory will inevitably end up with your work on another blog without proper attribution. Explore how it feels and the ethics of using other people’s content without consent.
Informatic security
- Discuss cyberbullying: ways to protect yourself, how to respond when it happens, and how to avoid accidental cyberbullying when blogging.
- Explore computer security: password security, viruses, trojans, phishing, etc.
- Learn about online dangers and ways to protect yourself.
classroom website
- Make handouts and homework assignments accessible on a classroom website.
- Use a secure website as a communication tool for both parents and students.
- Introduce your students to HTML and web design.
earn money online
- Introduce students to the business of making money online.
- Explore online advertising: how it works.
- Raise funds by selling things on e-bay.
GPS and mapping technology
- Geo-cache with your students.
- Use GPS technology or mapping software (eg, Google Earth) in math class to build larger geometric shapes. (ie, build a circle that has a radius of 5 blocks).
- Apply GPS technology or cartographic software in Geography.
Internet as a global village/community
- Find a class to correspond with via blogs, email, or IRC chat rooms.
- Use a wiki for students to synthesize and assess knowledge gained in a content topic such as History or Geography. They can track how their understanding of concepts grows. Demonstrate how our understanding of a specific topic evolves over time (i.e. dynamic, digital KWL chart)
- Post student work in English and their first language online so relatives abroad can celebrate their success.
Technology as a teaching tool
- Use a data projector in class to model and share readings.
- Use a data projector in class to do shared writing – the modern equivalent of flipchart paper
- Use dynamic geometry software (ie Geometer’s Sketchpad) to explore math concepts.
Music and Technology
- Buy songs (ie iTunes) and let students DJ their own school dances.
- Critically examines popular music to determine if mainstream music is appropriate at a school dance (ie Soulja Boy – Crank that)
- Create your own podcasts. Students can use free sound editing software (ie audacity) to mix free sound effects (ie ljudo.com) with their digital recordings of their voices.
class projects
- Send an item around the world and invite people who find the item to leave a message online on the classroom blog.
- Explore the video creation process: scripting, recording, editing, post-production
- Explore YouTube as a means of posting content.