As a part of our province's professional teacher magazine, a new feature article will appear in each and every issue. The question: "How do we use technology to encourage and support our student learners."In the first article "Tech Class" the OCT asked southwestern Ontario writer Gerry Blackwell to interview me on how I use writing and stop motion to motivate boy writers. Mr. Blackwell spent time at my Minds-On-Media station last fall and then conducted a follow-up telephone interview. Then Kevin Hewitt visited the classroom and spent the morning snapping professional shots of the kids in action with all means of technology.
On the day of the photo shoot, it dawned on me. The students really do have all manner of technology to assist in their learning. In one corner of the room sits what we call "The Mac at the Back", in another corner is a static animation station. There is a SMART board at the front and another computer attached to it. As well, we just crossed the 1to1 threshold a week or so back as all students, with school provided devices and BYOD, have their own device.
It just seems all so "natural" for the grade 6 students I teach every Day 2 to use technology. After all, technology support has been my vocation for the last 12 years or so. So why wouldn't it be a natural fit to use technology for all things in the classroom.
I'm a big believer in having students create an original artifact where none existed before. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
As Alan Luke has said, "Give the kids the gear, a webcam, a laptop and have them create".
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