I sat down with Sheryl Wittig, the Librarian/Music Teacher at Auke Bay Elementary to ask her questions about her experience with technology.
What drew you to using technology?
I like how it engages kids. Some kids just don’t care, but most kids are happy if you show them something to do, they’ll think it’s cool and they’ll want to play with it. So it’s engaging, that’s probably the main thing. It hooks kids it’s got a good hook. And then when you look where things are headed, for better or worse, it’s probably involving more technology rather than less technology.
I like how it engages kids. Some kids just don’t care, but most kids are happy if you show them something to do, they’ll think it’s cool and they’ll want to play with it. So it’s engaging, that’s probably the main thing. It hooks kids it’s got a good hook. And then when you look where things are headed, for better or worse, it’s probably involving more technology rather than less technology.
What are some ways that you teach technology in the classroom or teach with technology?
One thing I do in music is I leverage technology. For example I’m not a great violin player or guitar player, but guess what- you’re teaching, so it’s like you find some good software and I would literally just guide kids through that. My preference, given the time is for kids to be producing stuff. Its tricky in this job because I only have like 36 minutes. I love big projects, like when I was doing gifted (programs) and stuff, where it was creative and kids could choose which tools they wanted to use and stuff like that. I was doing tech for a long time before I decided to become a librarian. I feel that that teaching technology has become part of what a librarian’s job is now….Now we teach kids to do podcasts and making movies, but there are so many uses for even older style computers.
One thing I do in music is I leverage technology. For example I’m not a great violin player or guitar player, but guess what- you’re teaching, so it’s like you find some good software and I would literally just guide kids through that. My preference, given the time is for kids to be producing stuff. Its tricky in this job because I only have like 36 minutes. I love big projects, like when I was doing gifted (programs) and stuff, where it was creative and kids could choose which tools they wanted to use and stuff like that. I was doing tech for a long time before I decided to become a librarian. I feel that that teaching technology has become part of what a librarian’s job is now….Now we teach kids to do podcasts and making movies, but there are so many uses for even older style computers.
How many years have you been using it?
23 years and I’ve been using it since the beginning- since floppys flopped.
Why tech important?
I think for these kids, a lot of their economic livelihood is gonna depend on being able to use this. I think for their citizenship, technology offers that sort of even playing field in some ways. It can equalize in the sense that you’ve got access to all information and it can make us better citizens. We know what’s going on and we can communicate with other people and live democracy. And then there’s that whole creativity aspect that you can use technology to create new things. And when you look at technology it helps you differentiate- you know at different levels, different interests. It could be our biggest assistant. The downside is that you’re dependant on the network to cooperate.
What are examples of programs you’ve introduced to students?
Students have really liked Scratch. It’s put out by MIT media lab. It’s free and stable and not ridden with a bunch of advertisements. It’s just really really basic programming at a really graphic level. I can show even real little kids, and you can take it as far as you want. You can just use it like a fancy Kidpics or you can make the kitty cat go back and forth and say meow. You can make actual video games or just a linear movie or something like that. One of the ones I’ve done in the past has been making web pages, but we’re kindof migrating from Netscape to web-based stuff instead of an application like Dreamweaver. We’d use Google Sites, cause I think iweb is so limited cause you have to use their templates and stuff. They love GarageBand. But really GarageBand is messing around and making podcasts. I also like to use them in DRA’s to keep a portfolio.
Describe your favorite tech integrated lesson.
I’ve got a few huge projects that I’ve done with the kids. One is a million dollar project. This was when I was working with the gifted program. They had to do a power point and do a bunch of internet research and make a timeline and make a simulation of how they’d make Juneau a better place with a million dollars. They had to do Excell spreadsheets and collect a lot of data. Another one is Robotics. It’s actually happening this year on December 10th. This is an awesome program and they are building robots. You build the robot and then program it to do all sorts of tasks. It involves problem solving and creativity- it’s awesome.
I really like Ms. Wittig's comment about using technology as a tool to teach something you are not particularly good at. She mentioned using technology to help her teach the violin to students. I think this is a fantastic idea. I agree with what she said about using technology as a hook to get students interested in using it. I think that just showing them what they can create with a particular program will motivate them to want to learn how to use it.
ReplyDeleteI like the examples of tech integrated lessons. I think its cool the ways we can use technology to reach out to our gifted learners as well as advance the learning of those students that need a little extra help to succeed. I'm interested to see how the robotics lesson turns out this year.
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