I once had a professor who had been my elder brother's professor in the same subject, some fourteen years earlier. Before I went to that class for the first time, my brother asked me to say hello for him, and to ask the professor if he still used the same note cards for his lectures.
I didn't need to ask. The age-yellowed, bedraggled index cards had clearly been around for those fourteen years, and perhaps longer.
It seems to me that being able to just pull out the same materials, year after year, and present them in the same style would be a wonderful time saver. I envy teachers who can do that. However, I am not one of them, much as I'd like to be.
If you're a teacher (and if you're reading this post soon after I've written it), then you're likely wrestling with the Common Core and APPR requirements. Among other things, both of these demand competency with "21st Century Skills." At first, I found this a nuisance...but I've since gotten the bug. Now I'm curious to see just how well I can implement new technology into my classroom.
I am not a technophobe -- in fact, I am one of the more technologically-comfortable members of my department -- but once we get past the user-friendly consumer stuff and into open-source materials, my mind starts to get a little boggled. So this should be amusing.
In the future, I'll post about my investigations and experiments with various technological developments. At the moment, my topics are likely to include innovative uses of the SmartBoard, how to "flip" a classroom, developing and awarding digital "badges," and using technology to bridge the teacher/parent gap.
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