Daily Archives: October 25, 2009

Digital Transition on a Sunday Morning

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Digital Transition on a Sunday Morning

Richard White

2009-10-25

True Story:

A few years ago, my good friend Brian travelled to spend the weekend with some friends of his in San Diego. He had an online business at the time, so he took his laptop with him, knowing that there would almost certainly be some spare time on the trip in which he could get a little work done.

He had a great time on Friday and Saturday, as one does when visiting friends. On Sunday morning, the three of them were slowly waking up at the breakfast table, sipping coffee, chatting. It occurred to Brian that he’d like to quickly check his email, but he didn’t want to be rude, so he left his laptop in its case.

Until…

espresso_maker_and_mug

One of his hosts piped up. “Say, you guys wanna hear something funny? There was this great op-ed piece in the New York Times yesterday…” The guy pulled out his laptop, cracked it open, clicked through to the website, and read the op-ed piece aloud as the others sipped their coffees and listened.

Now it was the second host’s turn. “Yeah, but there was a response to that in that guy’s blog. What was his name? I forget. Hang on…” A second laptop is produced, and Google is searched for the appropriate reference.

“Well, hell, if you guys are going online, you won’t mind if I check my email real quickly, do you?” The hosts just laugh, and soon, Brian has dealt with his email, and is on to flipping through his own online newspapers.

And that’s how it went. Three guys, three laptops. Coffee cups are refilled, and they chat merrily late into the morning, reading to each other from their respective “newspapers”–online newspapers, of course–and enjoying each other’s lazy Sunday morning company.

It’s a true story. Technology growth and networking change the media with which we interact, but they don’t change the fundamental nature of that interaction. The kid with the string-and-tin-cans became the kid sharing his parents’ phone line, who became the kid with his own fixed line, who became the kid with a cellphone, who became the kid who can send a text message like he can breathe. But they’re all just kids, trying to hang out with their friends. And there really isn’t anything surprising about that, is there?

Say it with me: “We’re going to continue to transition technologically, and we’re all going to be okay!”

Hybrid Classroom Projects

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Hybrid Classroom Projects

2009-10-24

So, let’s say you’ve decided you want to “Go Hybrid”: you want to add a little tech into what you’re doing. There are a lot of reasons why you might want to do this:
1. You’re a geek and this is how you roll.
2. You want to be one of the cool kids.
3. You think being high-tech will make you look good.
4. You think your students will like it.
5. Your boss is making you do it.

These are all more-or-less legitimate reasons for wanting to advance your skills, but the best one is this:

6. You have an educational problem, and appropriate technology will provide a solution.

I mean, I love a new shiny gadget as much as the next guy or gal, but the technology is a tool, not an end in itself. It’s important for us to keep that in mind.

Email became popular not because it was cool, but because it was a powerful, fast, and essentially free tool that allows us to communicate more efficiently than we can by postal mail or telephone.

Likewise, my first website (back in 1998!) wasn’t designed to be cool, but rather to save me some trouble. It initially featured three pages: one with answers to current homework problems that students could use to check their work, one with review problems for the upcoming test, and one with a table of the students’ current grades in the course. It was my fervent hope that those three pages would reduce the amount of time I would have to spend going over homework in class, photocopying review packets (the photocopiers at that school were notoriously unreliable), and printing out individual grade reports for students each week, and I’m happy to say that that hope became reality.

But let’s get back to you. You want to incorporate a little more high-tech into your classes, and–ultimately–move a little of that high-tech online. Where does one begin?

The charts below may give you some ideas. There are two–one for grades K-5, and one for grades 9-12, and grades 6-8 and university are just variations on these. Each chart is organized along two axes. The x-axis runs from normal Face-to-Face teaching on the left to Hybrid (combined face-to-face and Internet-based) teaching on the right. The y-axis runs from easy, beginner stuff at the bottom to more advanced, higher-tech stuff at the top. And in general, as one advances and becomes more Hybrid, one moves from the lower left to the upper right of the chart.

It goes without saying that the charts list just a few, general ideas. There are many other things you can do, but if you’re not sure where to begin, consider starting somewhere on the lower-left and see how that goes.

We’ll be talking about some of the items on these charts as we continue the discussion, but if you’re the kind who likes to work ahead, go ahead and get started. Pick a strategy, and make it happen!

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hybrid_classroom_projects_9-12