Teach with Tech: Tech Teaches, Too

Kist's "Short" chapter a really good job of taking the idea of teaching in a technological, socially networked classroom in two different directions. The first direction is what I think most of us think of when we mention teaching and technology in the same breath -- multimodality. Specifically, Kist offers many ideas for lessons and activities that deal much with transmediation. I have found a few in this chapter that now have a nice big star beside them in my text. The first activity I really liked was "Julius Caesar, the Musical." At first glance, I thought this would be one of those activities where students acted scenes out with the added element of musical numbers. This scared shy, non-theatrical me. When I read the activity, though, I really liked it. The idea is to use music to express the plot or the mood of particular scenes of any drama you might be teaching at the time. I like this activity for two reasons. One is that requires students to review the play, interpret it, and analyze it for details such as mood and tone before they ever get to actually put it to music. Then students get to apply the same skills to music of their choice. This is what leads to the second reason I like this activity. Students get the opportunity to use music of their choice in this activity. They aren't limited to "good" music as they are often limited to "good" literature in the classroom. students can then own their work. It is theirs because it is made up of things they enjoy. This means students are motivated, and the battle for motivation is the underlying fight teachers fight everyday.

I mentioned earlier that I liked Kist's chapter for two reasons. Reason number two is that he not only speaks of using technology or nontraditional methods to teach, but also of how to channel the skills today's socially networked kids have into a more academically specific vein. For example, kids today are very used to the idea that they create material, post it to the Internet, and their peers respond and contribute to that material. So saying, collaboration is no new concept to them, but in the classroom this usually just mean group activities that mean dividing the assignment into sections that one student works on. Kist suggested the "Writing Collaboratively" activity that requires students to compose a poem together. One product made up of the words and ideas of four different students. That's the kind of collaboration I want in my classroom. Moreover, though, this activity utilizes today's students' already strong collaborative skills and brings them into the academic setting. This makes these skills seem validated as valuable in students' eyes. They are literate, productive citizens and activities like this help prove that not only to teachers, but to themselves as well.