Bitstrips

I have yet to get into the fad of using Bitstrips. I remember seeing them pop up on Facebook last semester as friends made comics of other friends doing ridiculous things that were quite relative to their actual lives. I did not expect to come across Bitstrips in my placement this semester.

My associate teacher was planning on having our grade four students make their own Bitstrip comic strips that would tell a story. It was interesting to hear about how something that went so viral could be used in an educational way that would encourage the students to know how to use technology in ways that they might not already know.

However, misbehaviour in the grade four classroom this week as a result of my associate teacher being absent, caused the punishment of not being able to do this fun project. It made me see how technology is often used as an reward and does not always have it's own necessity in education. How necessary is our use of technology in the classroom if it is not being used in ways that the learning goals could not be reached in the same way that it would if technology was not the method of instruction? Do we simply use technology as a reward factor for students or as a way to capture their attention when the learning goals could actually be reached in a more effective way? It seems as though if we are not using technology in the classroom (or in general), we're old-school and behind the times.

What's the point?

I don't want you to get the idea that I'm a technology cynic. I do see the benefits of using technology in the classroom, especially since most of our students are using it already. There's a SMART board in the classroom at my placement that I've seen my associate teacher use twice so far. Today it was used to show part of a movie during the first half of nutrition break (a better way of saying 'snack time'), and it was used during the language lesson. The worksheet that the students were working through was projected onto the SMART board in a similar fashion to the overhead projectors that dominated my elementary school years. The same worksheet was handed out in paper hardcopies to each of the students and the teacher also held his own paper copy. I expected something to be done with the sheet on the screen, but it just sat there. Even when we switched the page, the image on the screen remained the same. In this instance, I don't think that technology was used effectively. What was the point of having it on the SMART board?

I had to answer the famous question of, "Why can't I use my calculator?" today at placement. The grade 4 students are currently working on their multiplication tables and their math textbook asked them to estimate some tough questions, ex. 56 x 7. The young man who asked this question has his desk in the back corner of the room, right by my table where I was sitting and observing during the lesson. His headphones were on and although he was raising his hand with the others to answer the questions, he kept slyly pulling out his iPhone to change the song. After I successfully got him to turn it off, I ended up having to take it away when it was time to work, as he was using the calculator to get all the answers. We want them to be able to do multiplication in their heads, obviously, but this student was pretty right when he said that you won't need to do this in high school. If I have a mathematical problem in my daily life that needs solving, I'll pull out my phone to calculate it if it's anything more than single digits or an easy double digit problem. I do advocate for memorization of multiplication tables and mental math, but in "real life" we typically just use technology to figure it out.