Digital Divide - Response

This article brings up a problem with how technology is being used in poorer school districts. The issue is that poorer, minority based schools are in need of raising their test scores to meet requirements for The No Child Left Behind Act. In order to do so they have invested millions of their federal funding in Compass Computer Labs. These labs are very nice and high tech, but are being used to teach to the tests. The programs teach rote skills without context and depth. With a lack of highly qualified teachers in these districts, the computer labs are acting as a teacher replacement in some respects.

However, some schools who are buying programs that require higher order thinking are faring better. Also, it is important to have highly qualified teachers that can provide follow ups and context to the programs in order to produce longlasting learning that has value beyond spitting it out on a test.

Response - Power Point Articles.

The article called "PowerPoint is Evil" was a breath of fresh air. I had an experience this year as a teacher that was pretty disappointing involoving PowerPoint. I assigned a creative project on Roman history, encouraging students to think outside the box for their presentations. Instead of skits, video, or art work, I got six stale PowerPoint slide shows. To make matters worse, the students took turns reading each slide verbatim. It was boring and I got the idea that many students were uninformed about their own topics. I also felt that amongst the random facts that the students put on the slide there was little glue or context or narrative in their presentations.

The article argues that PowerPoint is evil because it is turning students into sales people in the classroom: using bullett points instead of full sentences, and colorful graphs with less information than flare. Often the slides are data-starved. PowerPoint is good for basic company slide shows with solid data in them. However, it has become to ubiquitous for our own good.

Inquiry Based Learning

Have you used inquiry-based learning as a teacher or as a student? What place would inquiry-based learning and/or historical thinking have in your classroom?

Inquiry-based learning is something that I use on a daily basis in my classroom. This is the kind of learning where the student is directly involved in the learning process. For example, in my advanced Latin class we are reading the Aeneid by Vergil. I have asked the students to read a chapter in English and then choose the lines of poetry that have the most meaning to them in their lives. The students then find these lines in the Latin and translate them. Finally, they have to put together the English and Latin with a Photo that they took to represent the lines. This inquiry-based learning gets the students involved in their own learning by relating the ancient Laitn to their own lives and interests.