Overcoming Technological Challenges

By and large, when I think about challenges with educational technology, I think about the problems that I have helped other people with. Without trying, I have always been pretty good with technology, and it usually only takes some poking around for me to figure out how to solve most simple problems.

Over the years, I have been the go-to person when it comes to technology. I have helped a lot of teachers and students with the problems that they run into when it comes to educational technology. I think the problems that I have seen the most often have to do with the use of a projector in the classroom. For teachers and students who have long been used to using an overhead projector and transparencies, moving to a laptop and a digital projector can be a large headache.

Most projectors have a bewildering array of options to try and get things set up. Imagine opening the setting menu on your TV; do you know what all of those options do? I can guess, most times, but that is only because I have taken time to try and figure out what they do. Projectors have even more settings than your average TV, and the terminology they use isn't always easy to figure out. Add to that, projectors from different manufacturers differ in how those menus are set up.

Then there are the computers. Most people don't know that a computer can support more than one monitor, or if they do, they don't realize that a projector is considered to be a monitor by the computer. The settings to get any kind of extra monitor working properly are even more bewildering than the options on the projector, and because many people don't have the computer hooked up to anything but the projector, if it doesn't work properly from the start, it can be very difficult to get it to work properly, especially with older technology.

However, it's not all gloom and doom. Modern operating systems like Windows 7 and Mac OS 10.6 have made it much easier to get a projector hooked up and working. As well, projectors are becoming easier to work with. Additionally, these technologies are becoming more and more ubiquitous, so educators are learning more about how to use them, thus eliminating some of the problems. These things combined make it a lot easier to work with projectors and allow educators to use them to enhance the learning process; I call that good.

Incorporating Blogging Into Teaching

One of the best ways that I can think of to incorporate a blog into my classroom would be to use it as a resource for my students to check on a regular basis for new information relating to the class.

It's a nice idea to have the students have their own blog, but there is no way to control the content that they post unless you want to review every single post that they make before it is allowed to be seen by the public.

If, however, you use your own teaching blog to provide information to your students, then you have a way, independent of having to work with the school, to be able to provide your students with extra, relevant information that can add to their learning experience. (As an aside, I would recommend that you do obtain permission from the school to use your blog in the classroom; it's not good to step on toes, or violate a school privacy policy).

My content area is Integrated Language Arts, and being able to provide extra information in the form of pictures, videos, or audio would be very useful. A lot of the time that I have to look for resources is outside of the classroom, and as I browse for new items to show my students, would be able to post them immediately. The students would then be able to subscribe to the feed of my blog so they would always have the newest content available.

Since a blogging service like Blogger offers easy-to-use templates, it takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting for you. The blog then becomes an additional space for your to help out your students when you cannot be around them.