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Earlier this year Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, was forced to resign because some on the school’s board felt she hadn’t capitalized on the online learning market. Whether or not her dismal was justified (she was reinstated only 2 weeks later), it’s not uncommon for the education industry at all levels to be behind the curve on innovations in technology. It seems that even when schools take a brave step towards engaging technology, they can be ineffective at accomplishing their main objectives. An example of this is the constant monitoring and blocking schools attempt to do to deter students from misusing their access to the internet. Of course some form of monitoring is acceptable and needed, but it seems that most of the time the only people schools effectively ban from Facebook are the teachers.
Hopefully by now the conversations in your school has shifted from what technology should we allow in the classroom, to how can we use technology to reach our communities better. Over the past few years I’ve been experimenting with using a class website to distribute materials, keep students informed on class assignments, and among many other things to give parents a window into the classroom. Rejuvenated by the summer and a late start to the year because of monsoon flooding, I took sometime to update my weebly.com based class website (take a peek if your curious).
In addition to adding various calendars and schoology.com for online grade reporting, I’ve tried to use the website to give students better access to materials that I’d generally print for the classroom. I’ve wanted to go paperless for a long time, to help prevent the inevitable stack of papers that encroaches on my desk every year. Despite my good intentions, I’ve always been a little inconsistent in my execution. Explaining my frustrations and problems with going paperless to a class of students last week, a student interrupted me with the following reassuring words, “don’t go paperless, go less-paper.”
With this simple reversal of words, I realized that my students don’t need a comprehensive and total online experience tied to the classroom. What they need is some connections with the classroom to the virtual world. If we look at the world outside of education that surrounds us as a model, we see that all successful companies are expected to have an online presence, in fact often one that is compatible with multiple devices. Should it be any different with our classrooms?
The other day while glancing through Facebook I noticed a former professor I knew from my undergrad years updated his status commenting that, “after 13 years…my whole time spent doing everything I could to avoid using Moodle (and before that, Blackboard)–today I actually logged into Moodle and thought about trying to start setting up one of my classes.” Is this professor a little behind? Yea probably. Does it make them a bad professor? No, but does it alter their effectiveness? At least a little. It seems that the age old rule of education still applies today: It doesn’t matter how much you know, as much as how well you can communicate it to your students (Ok, so I maybe just made this rule up, but I’m pretty sure it’s an old truth). Of course most student would like to be taught by cutting edge geniuses, but in the absence of Einstein, I think most would be happy with a teacher/professor that can help provide the best access to the tools of learning, which today includes an online presence.
Once the rains lessened and classes finally commenced I was excited to show my improved website to my students, maybe even hoping for a little praise from the “wired generation.” Sadly, I didn’t receive a round of applause or even a pat on the back, which if you think about it shouldn’t surprise us. I’m just glad no one asked “what took you so long?”
If you’re looking for resources to help make your class a “less-paper” class, I recommend the following free online programs:
This site offers many designs to choose from, as well as a customized web address. Setting up your website is painless and easy to change in the future. For a fee you can upgrade your site to access more features.
This program is used by some public school districts in the the states to report grades, take attendance and track students. Last year I started using schoology to give tests and quizzes online which corrects the objective question automatically, leaving more time to focus on the essays.
An invaluable tool for any school that wants to fight plagiarism (which should be all of us). Your school will need a subscription to use turnitin, which has a few glitches, but makes the job of checking plagiarism much easier.
Useful for more then letting the world know what you’ve had for breakfast, Twitter allows you send announcements to your students online or through a text message.
What did I miss? Do you use any invaluable programs or websites to enhance your classroom?
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