Those of a ... certain age... remember technology in the classroom as pretty basic. But that was the dark ages. Today's students have grown up in the digital era, and a lot of things that seem like marvels from the future are commonplace in the classroom. Most of us have seen or used a data projector, which projects a computer monitor onto a large screen. But there's a lot more.
Mark Claar is an honors Biology teacher at High Point Central High School. He says he uses an LCD data projector on a daily basis. "I use a system called the CPS Pulse... it really is just like a cell phone. Each kid has one, and the kids can answer questions using the device. They can answer short answer-type questions or multiple choice questions, and it can also be used for testing. While they're taking the test with that system, I can see on the computer screen what they're getting right and wrong."
Claar says that the instant feedback helps him to see immediately where students may have a problem. It helps determine whether, for example, there may be an issue with the content of a question or the students' understanding of it.
As one might expect, though, with rapidly evolving technology, there's a wide range of technological abilities among teachers. High Point Central Principal Bob Christina says his school has established a couple of initiatives to help. "We've created some teacher networking teams. We have meetings once a week in the mornings so we can have people like Mark Claar talk to other teachers that are afraid of technology, who don't know how to use it and were never interested in using it, to show them and excite them about possibly using technology instructionally. The second thing that we're doing is that we have one of these exciting teachers that's really interested in technology, we have them every Tuesday afternoon doing a technology session to show them how to incorporate the latest techniquest into instruction, because it is very difficult if you've not grown up with it, to figure out 1) how to use it, and then 2) how to use it best instructionally, so that kids are gaining an advantage academically."
Mark Claar says that the new technology helps teachers to better account for each student's classroom progress. The internet contains an unprecedented wealth of information for student research, but students frequently go for the low-hanging fruit, not wanting to dig very deep for the best information. In addition to being an invaluable research tool, Christina says it's also a very handy cheating tool. "The teachers spend a lot of time figuring out how kids are gonna shortcut projects, resources, piece stuff together, right, so we have different sites we can actually run documents through, that will evaluate whether they've plagiarized or stolen pieces from another person's work. But a lot of time is spent combatting the stealing of resources and other people's work, as well as short-cutting their own work."
The school holds regular grade level meetings to discuss technology, the good and the bad, with students. Some of the other downsides to the brave new world of technology include, of course, the very serious issue of cyber bullying. There's also what's known as 'sexting:' texting sexually explicit messages or pictures. Christina says it's a growing problem. "If you can text it or put it on facebook, it happens. That's it. Whatever happens out in the real world also happens here in schools. And so sexting is an issue we deal with regularly; some just by words, some by pictures. And again, there are certain district policies and procedures we follow to deal with those issues. The big damage is that no matter what we do, it's out there forever. Whatever you send as a picture, it could be there forever and ever and ever and that could affect you down the road and you don't know, and that's why we try to talk to the kids in these grade-level meetings, about how critical it is to be very careful in today's times about what kinds of information you put out there, because you can't take it back, once it's out.
Christina says trying to keep up is a never-ending task, and that in some ways the kids are one step ahead of the administration in both the appropriate use, and inappropriate use of the technology. "I'm not sure where it's going," he says. "Actually it's a pretty scary thing because we spend a lot of time, trying to figure out how we can get the students to use their technology that they possess at the right time, the right place, and for the right reason."
With constantly-evolving technology in this new digital age, that's just one challenge that won't have any answers for the foreseeable future.
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