Gaining Learner Attention

Gagne’s first event of instruction is an essential skill in a 1:1 laptop environment. If you feel like your students are not attentive when you are giving instructions, please insist on it and use one of these solutions:

1) low-tech: direct your class to put their laptops at “half-mast”… this means they lower the screen half-way so that they can’t see what is on the screen and their eyes can see you.

2) high-tech: use DyKnow Monitor to “lock” their screens. Please let me know if you’re interested, and we will get you set up for DyKnow.

 

Spoken Poetry from Our 5^th Grade

Do you teach poetry or some other discipline in which the spoken word or recitation is an important element? With the Audacity program that’s on the laptops your students can easily record themselves, and the audio files can be saved on the webserver, so the students have an authentic audience. Check out the great “Where I’m from…” poems that some 5^th graders recently recorded! Some people call this podcasting, I just call it good teaching.

 

Do you prefer Firefox or Internet Explorer?

These are both “web browsers” – programs that let you browse the web. When you click a link in an email message or other document, it opens your “default” web browser. I prefer Firefox, so I set it to be my default browser. Please click here if you want to view (and listen to) a video that shows how to set your default browser. If you’re currently getting Firefox as your default, but prefer IE, the directions are included.

 

Some Fun Sites

Createbands.com lets you select a group of virtual musicians and mix their loops to make your own wall of sound. The Freecycle Network (freecycle.org) helps people and organizations swap goods or simply give things away (you have to “join” this yahoo group, then you can post messages to give things away.) The Newseum site shows the front pages of hundreds of newspapers.

 

Let us Know if You Need Help

Please let us know if you need help with technology. Simplest way is to send an email to “help”. If something in your room is not working or needs attention please let us know.