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Technology in the Classroom

May 19th, 2008 by fvhale

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I ended my high school experience in December 1974.
“Technology in the Classroom” back then was those slide carousels synchronized with vinyl records that emitted a “ding” out the speaker that told the slide carousel to advance to the next slide (oooooo!)
Actual films, on reels, with clackety projectors, were shown, sometimes with sound. Sometimes they jammed, and the teacher had to splice the films on the fly. There was no videotape–VHS was not invented yet. Although some areas had broadcast educational television, there was no cable television.
Of course, there were no computers, no internet. Not even calculators. I took a course on the use of the slide rule in high school. Computing with sticks.

Now I’m preparing for a second career as a high school English teacher. Although all schools are not created equal, I suspect that I should be familiar with non-mathematical uses of technology in the classroom. Leaving aside Mathematica or Matlab or such science and math software, can anyone share experience with “Technology in the Classroom” for humanities? Is Google the ultimate study tool?

Thanks!

2 Responses to “Technology in the Classroom”

  1. on 19 May 2008 at 10:12 pm1 tj

    Frank,
    Congratulations on the new position, it is indeed a very noble calling.. While it’s been a while since I’ve sat in a classroom to notice the changes in class-room education, I will say that the over-dependence on Google can become a major impediment to independent learning, especially if people start assuming that everything in Wikipedia is the ultimate truth. One of my Professors had an innovative way of getting around it, he required that at least one of our reading sources for any work be a book written before 1970. That forced the class to get to the library–that forgotten, fabled institution. Maybe it will help your classes as well.
    Best of luck!

  2. on 29 May 2008 at 10:04 am2 Ed Dodds

    Frank:

    I can’t speak to Humanities specifically but I would send pointers to DSpace, opencourseware, and curriki.org

    I have an Open Educational Resources booster group on LinkedIn - invite url -
    http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/3792/2D78871E6B23 - whose members promote things along the lines of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

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