jasonbrowned300

The teacher teaches six preps of World History in a local high school. The teacher says the most important thing in History for students is to be able to take primary sources and secondary sources read them and identify the importance of them. This goes along with being able to read and comprehend as well as being good at research. Researching can include using books or the internet. The students must be able to be specific in their research since they might only have a few days to research. After the research is done the students use power point presentations in the classroom to go along with an oral presentation to the class. Students are required to create their own power point presentation. The students are sometimes required to use other visual presentations too, such as creating a timeline or obituary for a certain important individual. The power points are usually sent through e-mail to the teacher and he pulls it up on the projector through his laptop.
Most of the lectures are done via the laptop in power point form. Some tests are given on the computer, but most are in written form. Study guides are not used. Instead the teacher has downloaded forms of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” and “Jeopardy” on his laptop. These are interactive games where the teacher can change the questions and answers to fit the appropriate chapter or sections (see attachments).
The teacher also uses such things as ELMO so that the students can see things such as elevated maps etc…he says the elevated maps are useful when trying to explain the territory and geography of the places they are studying, but according to him he will always use the overhead and the white board for notes and homework information. The teacher finds that administration is very avid in the use of technology and pushes the staff to integrate as much as they can into their classrooms. I explained the use of a “smart board” to the teacher and the school is in the process of evaluating their funds to buy a couple of these to start with. Some teachers in the history department have even been pushing for the students to buy flash drives so they may save reports and computerized tests to these and hand these in so that the teacher may download them onto his laptop and get rid of the paper trail.
The teacher’s main reasoning for using technology in the classroom is to better prepare his students for college as well as life after school. He says with the internet he finds that students are learning to become better researchers and can refine their search to a specific topic. He also says it helps the students in their writing as well. As far as his philosophy he wished that technology was where it is today back when he was in school. He agrees with me that it is tough to keep up with, but he really believes that the use of technology has made his students progress more rapidly and it has made him become a better teacher.