Technology in the Classroom

As most of my close friends know, I’m not a tech-savvy person as most of my peers are. Computer is a definite necessity in my life, but I didn’t have much experience using the computer as any other method than emailing and word processing, but being a teacher in a tiny, remote island out in the Pacific, I definitely felt the need to use as much technology as I can in the classroom to get my students connected to the rest of the world.

•Mini-Lessons: Some of the mini-lessons that I used in the class involved using different presentations on the computer to provide a better understanding / idea of the topic to the students. Anything on the screen always got my students hooked! There were definite times that I wished we had access to more computers so my students could interact with the computer on a 1:1 basis to solve problems and play review games, but I guess this all has to wait a bit longer for our school system.

•Review Games: Everyone’s favorite – Jeopardy! Although we only used the Power Point Jeopardy once, my students seemed to love the interaction that they were having with the computer and each other as they were reviewing for a test.

•Short Films / Videos: World history, US history, scientific research, non-tropical plants and animals…all seemed so far away from us, almost unreal, when my students and I were reading it out of the textbook. Yet, with the help of short films and videos (mostly from the CRC – Yay! CRC!) of concepts that are rather hard for us to grasp and understand, I was able to bring in different parts of the world and different parts of history into our classroom. My students were immediately hooked! I also made a video clip of my students celebrating Students’ Day with poems that they created (video on the right side of the blog), and this definitely was a fun, interactive way to celebrate all the hard work my students had put into school.