J.P. Prezzavento - The Bits and Bytes of Education:

Trying a new lesson, new teaching method, or integrating a new piece of technology can be stressful. Thanks to my Twitter feed , I discovered GlogsterEDU earlier this year.    A Glog is an online multimedia poster.  This post is going to reflect on my first experience using Glogster.  There were a lot of positive aspects of this project for both my students and for me, but there were also a few road bumps that made caused a little frustration. Planning the Project If you are unfamiliar with my blog, I am relatively new to the world of educational technology.  Up until this school year, I was hesitant to incorporate much technology into my lesson plans.  After discovering the power of Twitter over the summer, I began incorporating technology whenever I could justify it.  One place I was sure I wanted to incorporate some sort of technology was my research unit.  Typically, I have students use the internet, library books, and online databases to...

After talking with a colleague recently at lunch and looking through my Twitter feed for the last six months or so, I started to wonder why more teachers don't supplement their daily lessons with technology.  I have found and implemented a number of new resources to help my students, and I'm surprised that more teachers haven't joined me yet.  Throughout our conversation and during my 45 minutes on the treadmill that afternoon I came up with a few reasons why teachers stray away from the integration of technology and possible solutions to get our colleagues on board with technology.  1.  Teacher Apathy I despise the thought that this is a viable reason for avoiding technology, but let's face it, some educators have been in the profession for that magic number of years that makes them believe that they have found the perfect way of educating each student.  Their perfect way happens to be lecturing for 40 minutes each day, but that's neither here nor there....

The popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, coupled with high-tech video games and 21 st century entertainment for our students outside of school is necessitating a change in the way we as educators prepare and present information to our students.  Gone are the days where we can get away with 50 minutes of lecturing.  Our students are watching engaging Youtube videos and reading Facebook statuses to get their information instead of reading magazines and waiting for their favorite shows to come on TV.  Today’s students want their classroom experience to be as engaging as their lives outside of school.  The only problem is that most of us did not grow up in the same technological age as our students.  Integrating technology into your daily plans can be a very daunting task for an educator who is not familiar with Web 2.0 tools.  Here are 5 tips that will help you start using technology in your classes.  1- Get comf...