Student Documentary - Interest: Guitars

Here's an excellent example of a fifth grade student using his interest to motivate learning.  

• See how he researched his topic using the Internet and books.  
• Watch as he synthesizes his newfound knowledge into a documentary movie - with planned preproduction of shots and written narration script.  
• Finally, he demonstrates his understanding of technology through the application of iMovie to produce his video.  

Excellent work, Wyatt!

Letting Students Teach Technology

When I became a teacher, I was amazed at how my understanding of subject matter increased by my sharing it with others.  Recently, I discovered an effective way to teach technology to both students and teachers: let the students teach the teachers.   New York technology teacher, Rob Zdrojewski, has empowered his students by enlisting them to teach social media skills for professional development.   The sessions, called "Tech under 90 seconds", enable a teacher to learn valuable tools, such as gmail, Google Doc and Google+,  in small pockets of time.

"We talk about not having enough time in our day to do stuff; well, now if you can find those pockets of time and you have 90 seconds or less, you can scroll through our mobile blog site, check out different videos, and learn something right on the spot," Zdrojewski says. 

This is great news for the teachers, and gratifying for the students.  "The kids are really proud of knowing they're not just teaching kids in Amherst Middle School," Zdrojewski said. "It's on the web, so anybody that searches 'how to share a Google Doc' potentially could come across their video and learn it from there--and it's all thanks to screencasting technology."

Screencasting is using screen capturing technology by videoing the screen of a person taking the viewer through the program or application step-by-step.

Way to TEACH TECHNOLOGY, Rob Zdrojewski!

View his students' videos on his blog.  Read the full article from the journal.com. 

Need more techniques for teaching technology?  Purchase my award-winning book, Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects, visit The Critical Thinking Company. 

How Do You Teach Technology?

I was an educator for 15 years in a school system that invested millions in technology.  Day after day, I witnessed exactly the same uses of technology: drill and practice for state tests.

In my grades 3-6 gifted and talented classroom, I chose to utilize the power of technology for more.  Differentiating based on student's individual interests, I allowed my students to research independently to become resident experts on any topic of their interest and develop innovative ways to share their expertise.  My job as facilitator was to teach the students how to research on the Internet (finding reliable sources and correctly cite the sources) and to introduce them to innovative presentation technology such as documentary movie making and animation programs like MIT's Scratch.

The creative and informative work they produced with topics ranging from "The History of Dragons" to "The White Rose- Opposition to Hitler within Germany" could not have been possible without the freedom of student choice.   I certainly wouldn't have assigned the latter topic to a fifth grader, but she chose to assign it to herself. (To be honest, I had never heard of The White Rose Society before my student's presentation and learned much that day- a perfect example of the power of the Internet for education.)

My book, Teaching Technology Through Interest Projects, was written to share that power with other educators- public or private school teachers and home school parents.

Great Article on Education Technology

The Global Search for Education: Education Technology