Trying to Catch Up to My Students With Technology

Mike Bjork – LPHS Science Teacher

Remember the old adage, “You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks”?  Well when it comes to technology, I am that old dog.  I can remember vividly sitting in the computer lab at Dassel-Cokato High School back in 1986 trying to create some sort of animated figure on a new Apple IIe and then trying to print out that image on a dot matrix printer.  FRUSTRATING does do it justice.  But, that was the “new” technology of the day and, looking back, we were pretty lucky to have what we had.  I went kicking and screaming into the computer era.  I am pretty old school in many ways and I didn’t like these “new contraptions”.  Little did I know then that it wasn’t that I didn’t like them, I didn’t understand them.

Now, fast-forward about 30 years.  The Apple IIe is long gone, as is the old dot matrix printer.  Computers now are much faster and do so much more of the work for you.  I can’t imagine not having one.  The bad thing that I face now is that my students are more technologically savvy than I am.  I often times have to ask a student or younger co-worker how to do things on a computer.  Becoming better at using this technology in my classroom is so vital to the success of my students; I am working hard at catching up to them.

One of the pieces of technology that I am becoming more familiar with and using with my 6^th grade class is Google Classroom.  Google Classroom allows me to post assignments into a classroom that I set up and the students can go in, complete the assignment and share it with me electronically.  Probably one of the best features, that I have figured out so far, is that I can share feedback with students by posting individual comments to them about their assignment.

The 6^th grade students are working on their Science Fair projects at this time in the school year.  There are lots of small assignments that they need to complete as they are progressing through their projects.  They are writing Scientific Questions, Hypotheses, research papers, material lists, and procedure lists.  In a few weeks, they will be tabulating their data into data tables and creating graphs to show the results of their experiments.

By putting these assignments on Google Classroom, my students can create rough drafts and submit them to me.  I can comment back and forth with the students, answering questions and providing suggestions and ideas on how to improve what they have submitted.  Instead of having them write things out on paper, have them turn it in, spend a few days reading and commenting, and then giving them back to corrections.  What used to take days, I can do in a matter of a few minutes.  The kids get instant, well pretty close to instant, feedback and I get to communicate better with all of my students.  It’s a win-win for all.

So here I am, the “old dog”, learning new tricks right along with my students.  That’s pretty cool.