Tech Versus Old-School

It is my contention that technology should be used as often as possible. In class today I had created a vocabulary example sheet for students to model from: I could have printed out a copy and used the overhead projector, but instead I mirrored the document from my iPad onto the screen using AppleTV. This way I could single out the word, the definition, and zoom in on a particular section. Afterwards, the students were to think | pair | share using the defined word, the context it was used in the novel, and a possible darker variation of the word 'derisive.'

I suppose it would have been fine to have the students create a document on the computer and share it with a partner and make comments on each other's papers, but that time is quite a ways off when every student will have an iPad of a laptop. In the meantime, the old-school method of pen and paper will have to suffice for in class assessment.

Also aligned with an in class novel like Of Mice and Men is a film tie-in, such that students can watch the visual representation of the novel they're reading. While this can be an excellent combination, especially for a few of the students who might not have knowledge of visualizing a novel, it's also important to give students a chance to create their own idea of what a character might look like based on the physical and psychological characteristics painted by the novel. This can be done through good old fashioned character maps drawn in class, where students pull information from the novel to create a colorful and complex character.

Technology Integration in Class	No Technology
American/British/Australian vocabulary skype, TodaysMeet, Google Drive	Discussion/assessment of in-class novel journals, group discussion, class publishing
Movie tie-in to in-class novel	Draw concept of character based on traits outlined in novel
Multimedia quiz Google Drive, EDU	Vocabulary concept map
Research author, history and setting of a novel	Write a background of one character from a novel whose history is unknown

Technology is awesome, and it's only going to get cheaper, more accessible, and more integrated, but in the short term there are many students who still have limited access, and technology will fail. For instance, the Internet was down all day due to some obscure electrical part, and this was after the problem was momentarily fixed due to a firmware update. This outage made it impossible to do any online research or to do any activity using the Internet.

A Plan B is always a good idea, no matter how integrated your classroom might be.