What a great year this is going to be in the computer lab! All of my six-year old students are tech-savvy and will not be bellowing out my name in the supposedly quiet media center. And then I hear "Mr. Hernan, I need help!" The silence is golden aura has been broken. This student has somehow managed to tap into the error message capital. He has six different error message boxes open. The young lad is looking at me as if he was caught breaking into the National Mint and was about to wire funds to his offshore account. After 10 minutes of closing windows and rebooting the computer as well as a brief discussion about letting me know about a problem a bit sooner, he was working in Imagination Station.
It's time to make a lap around the two rows of computers to see my class hard at work. Until I pass a sweet little girl who is hardly working. She is sitting up straight in her chair and has her information card next to the keyboard. She is staring at a black computer monitor. I quietly ask her why she isn't on the computer. Her response was "it's not turned on." I calmly return with a question about why she hasn't turned it on. At which point she shares with me that she doesn't know how to turn the computer on. I use a very calm and steady pointer finger to slowly approach the black button in the center of the tower. I press the button and magically the screen jumps into action.
I realize now that I'm not batting a thousand with this class in regards to technology. Mental note to self includes a whole group lesson on the computer basics from signing in to signing out in the computer lab. I assumed that they knew how to handle the computer and the necessary steps to successfully launch a learning experience in the virtual world. I was wrong and not for the first time either. Long story short the second visit to the computer lab was much better than the first.
photo retrieved from: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=kid%20on%20computer&ctt=1#mt:2|
Patrick -
ReplyDelete"What a great year this is going to be in the computer lab!"
I loved your post - I can sympathize with you about thinking how great this year will be in the computer lab. The first time I took my class to our computer lab, I found out differently. Not even all of my fifth grade students knew their ID numbers to enter for their usernames. I'm pretty impressed that your first grade students knew what to do! I also am hoping that the second time in the lab (Wednesday) will be better!
". . .how advanced and technologically prepared our students are upon entering our classroom,. . ."
I agree with you that it is so easy to assume that all students are exposed to a lot of technology away from school. However, I think most of the exposure to technology that my low SES students have is what they get at school, so we need to make sure that we are teaching them the basics, as well as going beyond!
Thanks for an entertaining post!!
Linda
Hello Patrick,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great post you just presented to us all. This is truly an eye opening story that just goes to show that, while our students are living in the digital age, we still need to make sure we are going through the steps with them, just like we would do with any lesson we would teach. Just like you pointed out, sometimes we assume that our studnets already know how to do a majority of tasks online. In most cases, this is true, but there are some student who are not as familiar with technology, and that is perfectly ok. Your post is a really great point of showing why it is important for educators to learn about technology so we can not only keep up with our students, but so we can help our students keep up with the times. Thank you so much for sharing your own experience, I really enjoyed your post!
Linda,
ReplyDeleteAs teachers, we always need to assess our students in various areas. Technology has become one of those new areas. Even at six years old, the students amaze me with their recall and knowledge about computers and the ActivBoard in my classroom.
acarli,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response! Each and every day I try to show my students something new about our classroom ActivBoard. They are such sponges about new things including technology. I have to keep reminding myself that they are only six and sometimes they forget how to do things. As teachers, we know the phrase "model, model, model."