Lost in the Woods

As a fairly new teacher, and one who is tackling the feat of starting a school where every student has a netbook, I feel that I get a lot of vague undirected encouragement to use technology. I read in books, blogs, news articles, and hear from other educators that this generation learns differently and we must change our teaching style to match that. A number of the books have great research convincing teachers that students brains work differently and we're boring them to death. The answer: Use technology to reach them. OK, that's fine and all, I'm convinced, but now what? I've never been taught any method but the traditional ones we're being discouraged to use. Even my online masters courses are a traditional read the book, listen to a lecture and take a quiz method with very little new innovative teaching methods. I feel like I'm stumbling around in the woods while clear voices call through the trees telling me that there is a way out and I need to find it. But when I ask which way no one responds.

My frustration with using technology in the classroom is complex and there is a healthy list of things to get peeved about. But the opportunities excite me enough that I really want to do it and succeed. To succeed teachers need more than just to be told to be different. We need to see what it looks like and see real life examples of new innovative teaching ideas. We need to lead each other out of the woods.

That's where this blog comes in. I am starting at a brand new school next year that will hand each one of the students a netbook that is to be used in every classroom. Each subject down to physical education must find applicable progressive ways to show the taxpayers that their money was spent to help increase learning not just to have a school with "cool stuff". 

I have been testing and researching as much as I can and I hope that some of the ideas can be useful to others as well. I also hope to steal any of your ideas and share them with others. So I'll tell you my victories and failures and hope they help in some way to improve what you're doing in your classroom.