Notes at start of working at Dalian
Notes at start of 2011-2012 school year For Integration of Technology 6 – 12.
Start (if there is not one already) a technology integration group made up of teachers, administration, and students that make decisions about learning. Two students from each grade (female/male) would be 14, this could be too many so maybe two from year 6 – 8 and two from 9 – 12 giving us four students. Taping into student's interests – what they use outside the classroom often works well within integration projects. Also, knowing student interests can provide project material for club/after school type work. For example I had a group of 8th grade students interested in advertising at a New York City public school. We integrated not only their interest in advertising by having them hook up with one of the world's top ad firms, JWT Advertising Company, but we brought in their English and art classes and worked on video productions as well as web development, see http://neuage.us/RGA/week1.html. Teachers know their curriculum and where they want to take it. My add-in has a duel emphasis; collaboration outside the classroom/city/province/country and bringing in what enhances/extends the curriculum. The basis of this is html. Students should have a homepage which is their foundation – all else branches out from this. From their home-base links go to every area of living/learning. The homepage should be only on the student's computer with an area on the school's server. Privacy is paramount. I have been working with this for about ten-years with student's creating portfolios that extend throughout their school history. Oh dear television watching time – Narda wants to watch an episode of 'Breaking Bad' and writing up a technology plan or having any thoughts other than 'wow this is a crazy show' is not happening now.
The knowledge of many tools enhances creative tasks. Multifaceted accomplishments not only gives new and exciting layers to an assignment but provides roadways into new ways of seeing and performing but also can lead to future inventions. Exposure to programs is important but even more so is being a master of several. For example, knowing a webpage development program such as Dreamweaver and an image program such as Fireworks/Photoshop and a text editor such as Open Office and a 3d maker like Rhino3D or Blender can provide new dimensions to projects. There are hundreds of main task programs. We can easily be overwhelmed by so many. As integrator of technology in middle and upper school I will use/develop different programs for various courses and grades. The hope is to have exposure to as many products as possible so that the student is able to choose what is best or what they are most comfortable with at any given instance.
Finding where/when a program should be initiated has several key factors: what equipment is currently available, what can we get for free, can we excite the community (parents, teachers,
How can we us technology in cross discipline projects?
Integrating technology in the curriculum encourages problem solving, exploration, and learning in and out of the classroom, promoting higher-order thinking and technological literacy. Technology can be a silent partner or a loud partner. It can be work, entertainment, play and learning. An example of this is Kinect (November 2010). Kinect is a motion sensing input device by Microsoft for the X box 360 video game console. However, soon after it was released many other usages were discovered that Microsoft had not anticipated. Now it is being used in education for robots, art, and a huge growing array of products and subjects.