This is what I read this weekend. I don't know if you'll be able to read it without logging in to The Ledger's website. But the article talks about a fifth grade class in Miami, FL that has gone paperless. The teacher, Judy Herrell has been implementing things like PowerPoint presentations and using websites instead of textbooks since 1999 when the school received a grant. The students love it, of course.
"Instead of writing with a paper and pencil and your hand getting tired, we can do it on a computer," said Robert Toledo, 10, as he reads a site about Abraham Lincoln. "It's faster and better."
This concept was so popular that Herrell's class was split up into two groups, morning and afternoon to give more access to the students. I can only dream of a classroom like this. Well maybe not only dream. I do dream about this but worry about achieving it. I know I could do it but it's school districts that need the encouraging. Herrell said she spends at least 10 hours a week looking for appropriate websites for her class. She also said that without an education her students will never have a chance at the American Dream. She couldn't be doing anything more right to get her students ready for the real world. Granted they are only 10 years old right now but she's preparing them for the rest of their schooling career and college.
My good friend Robin teaches at Marathon High School. She knows the woman I requested to student teach with. She said that she will often complain that her students don't want to work today. Apparently she's techno-phobic and doesn't expect much from her students. This could work to my benefit or be a complete disaster. I hope she'd be willing to let me incorporate some technology into her classroom, especially with her seniors who don't want to work. I can't wait to meet her 7th graders. If I am definitely placed with her that is. I observed her class once before and she has a great personality that students respond to. I hope her students trust her enough to welcome me into their learning environment. I know I can't adopt a paperless classroom overnight, especially not with student teaching. But I know there are some ways I can give them the technology they need! There is another English teacher in that department that uses technology, maybe I can get some suggestoins from her. Maybe I'll be able to use Jen Gee's YA lit site. I'd love to interview the students on my first days and ask them what they like to read. I want them to know that their reading interests are important to me. Reading is not dead and I don't want to treat it that way. Will Richardson posted literacy is changing for today's kids. I think we should be rethinking what reading literacy is. Paperless classrooms are one way to help students become literate today. If Will and Judy Herrell from Miami can do it....
2 comments:
Im glad you figured out how to do the links/pictures. Way to bring back the Native-ness :)
All good here Katie. You are going to be a change agent wherever you are.
The complaint that students "don't want to work" is an ubiquitous one. And i do take issue with it. I couldn't continue to do this work if I didn't.
Read this from Tracie's post to the course blog:
"If the written word is dying, then my host teacher for 505 is certainly helping it along. Her Regents kids don't read to much, and she prefers to show them film versions of the classics, about which they fill out worksheet study guides and then have a mulitple choice, true/false, short answer test. She did this with Hamlet, and I thought, okay, it is Shakespeare afterall. But now she's going to do the same thing with Moby Dick and Huck Finn. The kids asked her when they are going to read another book and she said not until Spring when they do To Kill a Mockingbird. Apparently they are going to actually read printed words on a page. What a novelty. If this is the future of English, count me out. I did not go through all of this to teach a film class."
I don't put the onus on the kids here...do you?
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