Technology in School is Cool!

Too Cool for School? No Way! By Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler

Technology is definitely not too cool for school. Although most technology is not designed with the classroom in mind, technologies can be repurposed as educational tools. As Mishra and Koehler mention, “such repurposing is possible only when the teacher knows the rules of the game and is fluent enough to know which rules to bend, which to break, and which to leave alone” (16). This means that as future teachers, we must familiarize ourselves with technology before we enter the classroom so that we may appropriately use the technology to help teach different subject matters. Three examples of repurposed technology were given: Microblogging, specialized search engines such as visual search engines, and DJ software. My personal favorite repurposing was incorporating DJ software into the classroom. In particular DJ software, for instance trakAxPC, is great for aiding teachers in educating students about math. When you use this software, users are able to download music and then cut, paste and rearrange the music as they like. As students use trakAxPC, teachers can educate the children on fractions, ratios, proportions and even percentages. This hands-on experience makes learning fun, but also suits many different types of learners from visual to auditory and kinesthetic. Also, using this lesson plan introduces students to both mathematics and music. I agree with Mishra and Koehler when they state “teachers need to develop a willingness to play with technologies and an openness to building new experiences for students so that fun, cool tools can be educational” (18).

In my future classroom, I hope I will be able to imitate the trakAxPc lesson plan while adapting it slightly. Before bringing my students into the computer lab, I would discuss mathematical concepts such as ratios, fractions and proportions. Then I would have my students bring in some of their favorite songs, classroom appropriate of course, so that they may manipulate it. I realize that this technology may be new to some students so I would give the children some time to explore and learn about trakAxPC and how it works. After they familiarize themselves with the DJ software I would assign a project where each student had to make a short mix of three of their favorite songs. After they are finished making their new song, I would either have a worksheet for students to fill out or I might have students write a short paragraph about their music. If I chose to handout a worksheet, I would ask questions regarding the mathematical concepts I discussed and the students would have to answer the questions based on the song they created. If I decided to have the students write a paragraph, I would highlight the mathematical concepts that must be discussed in their paragraphs, such as what ratios and proportions of each song were used. When all is said and done, I would have the students share their work. Overall I feel that this would be an effective lesson plan because it works with all kinds of learners, but it is also something different and exciting.