VIDEO!

It is true that video is a powerful tool. I often realize that my students are extremely visual. One of the things I could have done previously in lessons, was incorporate something from united streaming or from a different website containing teacher tools. I say this because with every lesson that I teach in a unit in my foreign language classes, there are videos that the students must watch. These videos are so outdated! The students do not identify themselves with the youth in the videos and it gets somewhat boring. I'm thinking for each lesson of a Unit I should find something for the students to watch and present it with my data projector on my laptop to the whole class. I'd be afraid to assign anything like this for homework because not all of my students have internet access from home.

I recently did a project with my family on it because it involved all the vocabulary for that chapter for the students. I didn't use it as introductory material but I did use it as a review of information they had learned throughout those few weeks. They enjoyed it (it was in the form of a PP presentation) but I think it would have been neater if I could have made it in a type of slideshow format that looked more like a video - like what we did in class the night we used the MACs. I think this would have held their attention even more.

In the future, I think I could:
1) Videotape students acting out dialogues or plays in French
2) Make a video of things outside the school containing French culture
3) Present videos in class with my projector that have to do with the lessons being taught

So I'm going to try to be successful with the net generation - I keep telling myself after each class. On my drive home I think about how I can apply all that I'm learning to my classroom. I agree that there are many in-class projects I can do, but there are still other missions that I'm not too sure about. Many times when I offer a computer assignment, I'll get a response from students - "I don't have internet access at home." This shocks me because I like to think that everyone has internet access nowadays. I tried to remind myself the other day that it's probably due to the population that I serve. Since I work in a lower-income, urban school district, the large possibility exists that many don't even own a computer. This is where the chapter I read was right-on! Toward the beginning, it talked about the fact that we like to classify the net generation and think they ALL have access to technology or sometimes access to the same type of technology.

I'll tell you the big problem in my classroom whether rich or poor - Ipods! Cell phones! Maybe they don't all have internet access but there are forms of technology that I see are present in them. So, they are the net generation, but we can't assume they all have the same kind of knowledge. I'm supposed to be part of the net generation and I was one of those that only used internet for e-mailing professors in college. I didn't know too much about internet use - I still don't!

Keeping this in mind, in order for me to be successful with the net generation, I need to understand it's not ALL about technology (as the article was stating). Part of learning still has to be traditional as well. The difference is that today's learners are not as much auditory as they are visual so it's important to keep them engaged! I can facilitate a style of learning that engages my students and keeps them active and hands-on. Today's students are very kinesthetic-oriented.

I think if I keep these ideas in mind, it will help me serve my population of inner-city students. I don't have to make technology the CENTER of my class, but I can apply it in a manner that students will be engaged enough to learn comfortably!