Technology Integration: or the lack thereof...by dallas
Preface: I just created a perfectly beautiful blog, and thanks to the joy of technological integration, when I went to post the browser was misdirected and I lost everything I'd written. yeah.
During my grade school years, the idea of technological integration in the classroom reached its zenith with the overhead projector and the occasional instructional video. My grade school took a hard line traditionalist view when it came to teaching the fundamentals. Anything other than chalk and talk accompanied by desks and texts were prohibited. I can't recall so much as a field trip to the zoo. But my junior high, and high schools were state school and came equipped with the obligatory AV lab.
My ninth grade history class was the basic "names, dates, and sequential events" sort of class. Our section on WWII seemed like it was not going to be any different until the day I showed up in class to find my teacher, who's name escapes me, standing in the front of the class with a TV/VCR combo. I was elated. For the next two days we watched Swing Kids. The movie is rather silly now with my "grown up" sensibilities, but at the time it was incredible. WWII became more than just a war in Europe started by some crazy guy with a moustache. This film gave me a real sense of what it would have been like for a kid like me to live in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. While watching that film, history became real. Swing Kids allowed me to see past the endless black text to the human story that lay beyond. That is why I want to be a historian. I want to find the story, and tell it.
If I could go back and speak to this history teacher I would tell him thank you. I only wish he would have shown more well chosen films for the appropriate subject.
DP
During my grade school years, the idea of technological integration in the classroom reached its zenith with the overhead projector and the occasional instructional video. My grade school took a hard line traditionalist view when it came to teaching the fundamentals. Anything other than chalk and talk accompanied by desks and texts were prohibited. I can't recall so much as a field trip to the zoo. But my junior high, and high schools were state school and came equipped with the obligatory AV lab.
My ninth grade history class was the basic "names, dates, and sequential events" sort of class. Our section on WWII seemed like it was not going to be any different until the day I showed up in class to find my teacher, who's name escapes me, standing in the front of the class with a TV/VCR combo. I was elated. For the next two days we watched Swing Kids. The movie is rather silly now with my "grown up" sensibilities, but at the time it was incredible. WWII became more than just a war in Europe started by some crazy guy with a moustache. This film gave me a real sense of what it would have been like for a kid like me to live in Germany during the rise of the Third Reich. While watching that film, history became real. Swing Kids allowed me to see past the endless black text to the human story that lay beyond. That is why I want to be a historian. I want to find the story, and tell it.
If I could go back and speak to this history teacher I would tell him thank you. I only wish he would have shown more well chosen films for the appropriate subject.
DP
posted by Dallas @ 1:21 PM
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