Great front-page story in today’s Grand Rapids Press:
Forget PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii, these kids take high-tech to a new level … the classroom
by Kym Reinstadler | The Grand Rapids Press
Monday March 09, 2009, 11:09 AM
For 20 years, Patti Harju graded “weather reports” that were five neat sentences and a hand-drawn picture. That was then.
Today, the climate for showcasing learning is changing.
Think pupil podcasts, biology blogs and high-tech, video-integrated online reports.
College prep? Hardly. These days, it’s the very young students with access to technology who are leading the charge.
• Second-graders in East Grand Rapids videotape each other reading letters to President Barack Obama in front of a green screen. They superimpose these over photos of the White House to post on their e-newsletter.
• Elementary students in Hudsonville post poetry podcasts on their classroom blog.
• Fifth-graders in Hastings use a Glogster-based presentation to weave digital photographs, video and text into online reports.
“When it comes to creative classroom uses of new technologies, I think we’re seeing most at the elementary (level), not the high schools, like you might expect,” said Ron Houtman, educational technology consultant with the Kent Intermediate School District.
“The state’s new graduation requirements make high school curriculum more prescriptive, lock-step. There seems to be more time for technology in the lower grades.”
…for the rest of the article, click the link above.
My own thoughts: I’m thrilled to see teaching with technology on page A1 of a fairly large city newspaper. I’m not thrilled to see a local ed tech consultant saying that high schools are marching in such a lock-step, mandated manner that they can’t find time for using technology in the course of the school year.
Still, as more and more articles like this one are printed in newpapers around the country, you can’t help but think that just maybe we are getting somewhere…
Posted by mpullen 
