glo six

One of the many, many, many, many, many reasons I love my school and the people I work with:

Tomorrow, I am going to teach the children how to use Garage Band to compose a music track. On Tues., during lib. time, I'm going to have them select a book that they have already read and start to storyboard a Powerpoint slide show. Then, for the next few sessions of computer and lib., I will have them build the slide show, export it as jpegs, import it into Garage Band, add their music track and narration. When it's done, I'll have them export it as a podcast and place it on their website.

That is an e-mail I rec'd this morning from our marvelous librarian and tech teacher. I don't know about you, but in fifth grade computer class I was fixing broken axles on the Oregon Trail and chasing Carmen Sandiego across the globe. Nothing wrong with either - in fact, I wish kids today would be as enraptured as we were by such games - but my basic point is that back in the day, we were plopped in front of computers and left to our own devices for 45-minute periods, whereas today there are so many more opportunities to integrate the content areas, state standards and General Learner Outcomes into technology lessons. "Computer class" will never again be turning on a computer for the sake of turning on a computer.

I love this.