Instructify

I’m at the NCTIES conference in Raleigh. The intro session featured Vicki Davis of the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. Renowned for using nifty tools in her teaching, she shared a great philosophy for integrating technology into your classroom: focus on what you want to DO, and THEN pick your tools. Deciding you want a blog because that’s what everybody else is doing isn’t going to lead to a good learning experience for students.

In my first morning session, Wilson Diaz from Chapel Hill High School talked about how using the Google suite of apps (Docs, Groups, Calendar, etc.) helped him with both parents and students. He hit all the high points, such as using Google Docs for collaboration and such. However, he also noted that by using Google as a class information tool, it stopped parents from calling him with the same old questions. You know the ones — “If I only knew Little Johnny was having problems, I  could have done something sooner!” or “Little Suzy told me she didn’t have any homework.” And so on.

In addition, Diaz said he uses Google to post assignments and due dates. That means, for example, if a kid loses a worksheet, he or she can download it immediately, rather than wait until after school to stop by the teacher’s room. It was a nice presentation on how to use a series of tools to eliminate headaches from the teaching process.

Overall, I enjoy NCTIES because it’s more hopeful than other conferences. It focuses on possibilities rather than problems. Don’t get me wrong, people discuss problems here all the time, but the solutions — usually creative and incorporating technology in ways that will engage students — sound like opportunities rather than obstacles. -BILL FERRIS