Today was the first session of EDUC 504: Teaching with Technology.
Our first in-class activity was to draw a picture of our ideal
classroom, including what technology we would use and where it would
be. Later on, our professors mentioned that we would be posting our
assignments on our blogs, and that one of the reasons for this is
that people tend to do better work when they know it will be
available to the public. Which is to say, we made these drawing
before we knew that they would be available to the public! So
this is my re-draw, hopefully fairly legible.
I have the chairs set up in a U-shape like we have in our current classrooms at U of M. I am a realist, though, and am aware that I will probably have more than 20 students in most of my classes. And of course, the smaller my class size (in terms of students), the smaller my classroom, so the U of that U-shape may stand for Utopia. If a U including all students isn't possible, I prefer traditional rows of desks or tables, as the idea of a U with a few outliers (as we currently have in some U of M classes) or of a two-rowed U doesn't seem optimal.
I drew both a whiteboard/blackboard and a smartboard, but after mulling it over today, and talking with a colleague about our respective set-ups, I'm questioning my decision to include a smartboard (interactive boards hooked up to a laptop and a projector.) I used them while teaching English both in Turkey and in Spain, which is what inspired me to put them in my drawing. They're cool because you can project things from the internet and from computer programs that may come with your textbooks, and you can interact with them using the virtual markers. I thought of them as a combination of the best of a chalk- or whiteboard and of a projector. But then I realized that you can just project things onto a whiteboard and then write on the whiteboard. Also, it's not uncommon to waste minutes every day waiting for the computer to boot up, waiting for the program to load, waiting for the projector to warm up, figuring out why the picture won't project, getting a tall student to turn the projector off and on again, restarting a page because you accidentally brushed "show all answers" with your hand, etc etc etc... and projecting all the answers to the homework may be giving the students the message that they don't have to listen to the answers since they can just look at the board. So if I were to redraw the picture, I think I'd skip the smartboard.
I have the chairs set up in a U-shape like we have in our current classrooms at U of M. I am a realist, though, and am aware that I will probably have more than 20 students in most of my classes. And of course, the smaller my class size (in terms of students), the smaller my classroom, so the U of that U-shape may stand for Utopia. If a U including all students isn't possible, I prefer traditional rows of desks or tables, as the idea of a U with a few outliers (as we currently have in some U of M classes) or of a two-rowed U doesn't seem optimal.
I drew both a whiteboard/blackboard and a smartboard, but after mulling it over today, and talking with a colleague about our respective set-ups, I'm questioning my decision to include a smartboard (interactive boards hooked up to a laptop and a projector.) I used them while teaching English both in Turkey and in Spain, which is what inspired me to put them in my drawing. They're cool because you can project things from the internet and from computer programs that may come with your textbooks, and you can interact with them using the virtual markers. I thought of them as a combination of the best of a chalk- or whiteboard and of a projector. But then I realized that you can just project things onto a whiteboard and then write on the whiteboard. Also, it's not uncommon to waste minutes every day waiting for the computer to boot up, waiting for the program to load, waiting for the projector to warm up, figuring out why the picture won't project, getting a tall student to turn the projector off and on again, restarting a page because you accidentally brushed "show all answers" with your hand, etc etc etc... and projecting all the answers to the homework may be giving the students the message that they don't have to listen to the answers since they can just look at the board. So if I were to redraw the picture, I think I'd skip the smartboard.
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