I absolutely enjoyed the guest speaker, Jeff, who visited our technology class last Friday. Number one, I can easily see why our tech teacher regards him and his teaching practices so highly. Jeff is extremely energetic and engaging! The whole class seemed to feed off his excitement and love for his concentration, Science. He provided an impressive tour of his blog, which he uses as a teaching instrument for his classes. The blog is packed with student work, assignments done or work to be done, videos of class activities, and student-produced podcasts and verbal reviews. Jeff applies free technological tools that he finds on the Internet to provide these various resources. Jeff is doing his students a tremendous service by requiring them to use cameras, voice recorders, Itunes, podcasts, etc.. They are learning useful technologies that will aid them in many professions once they graduate. More importantly, though, Jeff is getting his students interested and even excited about learning. He gives them a lot of freedom to produce their own assessments (i.e. make a video of what happened in Science class this week) and entrusts them with expensive equipment, which builds the students' confidence and sense of responsibility, which are also useful tools in the professional world.
Jeff's blog is unbelievably complex, teeming with academic opportunity, and yet quite organized. I looked at it and freaked out a bit thinking, "How am I ever going to create something as elaborate as this?" However, he told us he has been working on this project for many years, adding a little at a time. Jeff finds a tool on the Internet, such as a voice recorder so the students can do their homework interactively and post it on the blog for the whole class to see (or just the teacher if he/she so chooses), and he learns how to use the tool and about its implications and possibilities. The search for and discovery of these online technological tools is an ongoing process for Jeff. He has shared his methods for employment of these contemporary learning instruments with his colleagues and his students' parents. He showed our class how to search for similar free devices to use in our own classrooms. I was completely taken by Jeff's presence, his love for teaching, and his desire to continually learn about teaching tools or methods that are challenging but that enhance his students' learning and desire to learn. I was inspired and entertained and enlightened...and a bit confused! Still hopeful though!
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Bridget, with all of the imaginative tech-related learning opportunities that Jeff provides for his students, I was most impressed by the way in which he talked about his step-by-step approach to becoming technologically literate. He looks like the ultimate expert, but it seems that he built this literacy slowly. over time. Even though when we look at his website we're inclined to say, "I could never do all of that," he seems to say to us that 'we *could* do this,' and that's an empowering message, isn't it?
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