I am working at an elementary school this time around, and have been teaching tech skills to very young students. The variety of skills is astonishing within a class, a grade and a school. Catching them all with a wide net is probably the only reasonable thing to do. To widen the net and make sure every student has an opportunity to learn (I explicitly avoid using the word "equal"; when will we stop fooling ourselves? There is nothing equal in the world, it's all very unique, and unique is anything but equal!) within the structure of the class.
First issue – technology skills can be either taught through direct instruction, lots of practice (=play) or a combination of hereof. Imagine direct instruction in a classroom of 20 K students with 2 adults present, and students are mainstreamed (or "pushed in"), often without additional support. Now imagine you are using somewhat older laptops, some of which have low battery charge. Can you see them waiting patiently for the computer to boot? Do you think they will be comfortable using the external mouse with 2 buttons (having the mouse on either side of the computer) and a wheel? Imagine that the mouse is very sensitive. What do you get? Noise and meltdowns.
Now I am not listing complaints here, but rather observations and some of the little details that I hadn't thought of right away.
I think we should create a new playbook. I think that kids need to participate more in the instructional process, I think they may have tasks they can handle at any age, which is often preferred to waiting patiently for instructions. I also believe in small group instruction. We are all social learners, but one-on-one learning is still social and is much easier to focus on. That's my next challenge, and I am working on it.
First issue – technology skills can be either taught through direct instruction, lots of practice (=play) or a combination of hereof. Imagine direct instruction in a classroom of 20 K students with 2 adults present, and students are mainstreamed (or "pushed in"), often without additional support. Now imagine you are using somewhat older laptops, some of which have low battery charge. Can you see them waiting patiently for the computer to boot? Do you think they will be comfortable using the external mouse with 2 buttons (having the mouse on either side of the computer) and a wheel? Imagine that the mouse is very sensitive. What do you get? Noise and meltdowns.
Now I am not listing complaints here, but rather observations and some of the little details that I hadn't thought of right away.
I think we should create a new playbook. I think that kids need to participate more in the instructional process, I think they may have tasks they can handle at any age, which is often preferred to waiting patiently for instructions. I also believe in small group instruction. We are all social learners, but one-on-one learning is still social and is much easier to focus on. That's my next challenge, and I am working on it.
