Last year, the authors of this article attended a conference focused current youth culture that included a session on technology. The conference director did an excellent job of describing the disparity between how kids interact with technology at school and in their“real” life:

“It is no surprise to any educator or parent that today’s students are different—due in large part to today’s rapidly changing technological society and students’ immediate acceptance and adaptation of its infinite and exciting possibilities. Students’ lives revolve around the use of technology; they, in fact, seem to breathe technology. Our schools, for the most part, have not kept up with this rapid change (for many reasons, e.g., the lack of funding and the lack of adequate in-service education in technology integration). Thus, there is a dramatic and disturbing disconnect between students’ life in the school and their technologically-rich real life.” (Sonja Schmeider, from TODAY’S KIDS INITIATIVE Conference, April 2005)

This discussion led us to thinking about the question,“Is it possible to merge cutting-edge technologies with the realities of everyday school life?”

It seems that almost everyone has an e-mail address and is a regular user of e-mail. Teachers can use e-mail along with many of these new tools to create powerful learning experiences for their students. The good news is that many of the new tools, such as digital cameras, iPods, hand-held devices, and blogs are fairly simple to use technically. It makes sense that if we can come up with valid educational experiences that utilize these technologies, student interest and engagement should increase. This article aims to provide an overview of some of these technologies with some practical ideas for using them.

Digital Cameras and Images

Digital cameras in education have quickly gone from limited to extensive use. There are two reasons for this change. The first and most important is that teachers have seen the power of the digital image in assessment. Teachers can easily photograph student work and attach the image to a report document, parent letter, or the student’s portfolio. Another critical breakthrough has been the lower cost of creating digital images. Today, a teacher with a throw-away camera can ask for the pictures to be saved to the web or put on a CD in digital format at any discount store.

Digital cameras are simple to use and the images are easy to share through e-mail, web postings, and presentation tools such as PowerPoint. Not only are they a valuable tool for development of teaching materials, they are a tool for engaging in academic content because today’s children are motivated by the digital world.

The following story will illustrate the potential of digital cameras at the elementary level (the idea could easily be translated at all educational levels). A second grade student from Bemidji, Minnesota, had an e-pal (an electronic pen pal) in Washington, DC. The e-pal in Washington invited the second grader to his birthday party. The teacher, thinking it would be impossible for him to attend the party, tried to redirect the child. However, since the school had been emphasizing “everything is possible,” the idea was discussed with the principal. Surprisingly, the principal said, “If you can get the funds, I think it would be a great idea!”

They conducted a successful fund-raiser and, in the end, 20 students and 15 parents were on a field trip to Washington, DC. Students and staff kept a digital journal of the entire trip, including preparations for the journey and student reflections. Throughout the trip, the teachers e-mailed images of trip highlights to parents at home and to their school. Not only did this allow everyone to experience the trip along with the children, it also provided reassurance for the parents who remained home.

Here are a few more ideas for using digital cameras and media:

• Students can participate in collaborative projects with their peers across the room or across the country, using the digital camera and e-mail to learn about each other’s communities. Have students develop lists of questions about the community that they want to discover. Have children from each city collect digital images related to the questions. They might want to show images of their schools, grocery stores, shopping centers, playgrounds, and local historical sites. Compare and contrast the communities using the images.
• For younger students, take pictures of easily recognizable signs (stop signs, McDonald's signs, etc…) in your community and assemble the photos into a picture book.
• Use photographs to illustrate step by step procedures for science experiments or to visually illustrate results from experiments.
• Have students walk through the school and take photos of triangles, circles, rectangles, etc. Print the photos and have students write descriptions of the geometric shapes they see and/or compare and contrast the various shapes they find.
• Use digital media to explore emotions. Think of abstract concepts such as love, hate, joy, responsibility, and respect and have students develop a photo essay that portrays the concept.
• Take pictures of the students at the beginning and end of the school year. Have students analyze the ways in which they have and have not changed.
• Document student activities for assessment purposes. Taking digital pictures of projects allows the teacher to create a “digital portfolio” of student work, and to create multimedia shows of student work for parent/teacher conferences or open houses.
• Take photos of important places and people in the school and create an “Important Book.” Write a description of the location of each or write directions for how to get there.
• Use digital photos of a student’s life and a tool like PowerPoint to create electronic autobiographies.
• Take images of vocabulary words or subject area terms and use PowerPoint to create electronic flash cards.
• Create images that help teach math concepts such as percents or fractions. For example, take photos that show ½ a wall, or ¾ of a book shelf, or 25% of a pizza. Have students compare and contrast these images to better understand percents and fractions.
• Have students create “A Day in the Life of…” book by using photos to communicate ideas visually and then transfer these thoughts to writing. Students could follow a staff member at their school such as the principal, librarian, or cook and photograph their activities. They could then display the photos sequentially accompanied by a written description of the staff member’s day. Photos will help students organize thoughts and sequences logically.

Blogging

Blogging allows an individual to publish to the web (and the world) without knowledge of web publishing software. Blogs, short for web logs, contain regular posts by the main author presented in reverse chronological order; others may have permission to post responses. Blogging can facilitate reflection, collaboration, and group problem solving. One way to get started with blogging is to use a program like Blogmeister. This is a free tool which allows the teacher to set up the blog and student accounts where students can then add their own entries. It can be found on the web at www.landmark-project.com/blogmeister/index.php

Teachers use blogs in a variety of ways. One fourth-grade teacher has created an online commentary on today’s news stories. Students regularly write comments and personal responses to the news. In another fourth-grade classroom, students are each assigned a day to be class reporter with the responsibility to record the day’s happenings on their class blog. A fifth-grade class uses blogs to create an online writer’s workshop where students critique and edit each others’ work.

Here are some ideas for using blogs in the classroom:

• Teachers and students can be authors of their own blogs and seek critique of their work. Teachers could post lesson ideas and ask other teachers to provide insight. Language arts teachers can use blogs as an environment for literature critique. Students might author narratives and seek peer review. Teachers could post parts of stories and challenge students to comment on style, character, plot, etc.
• Digital images and sound bytes can be included in a blog that could serve as a project report, a field trip log, or a commentary for an on going collaborative project.
• Blogs serve as an easy-access resource to create virtual communities. The concept could be applied to any content area. Imagine linking with another classroom to share details about community similarities and differences, or to share data on seed-planting projects with classrooms in other parts of the world.
• Students can participate in “Learning Circles” wherein students work for a larger audience and collaborate on task completion. For example, students may collaboratively research a topic or question and share what they find out through a blog, e-mail, or instant messaging.
• Students might participate in collaborative argumentation wherein a problem is defined and the students must collaboratively generate proposals, create supportive arguments, and make decisions through blogging.

Hand-Held Technology

Personal digital assistants (PDAs or palmtops) are handheld devices that have been used primarily as personal organizers. A basic PDA usually includes a date book, an address book, a task list, a memo pad, and a calculator. Many PDAs can now access the internet. Combined with an inexpensive keyboard, a PDA can become a miniature computer. The relatively low cost and portability of this tool make it a reasonable solution for integrating technology into the classroom. However, its ability to beam, link quickly to the internet, and offer games can easily create distractions in the classroom. So it is important to think critically about how hand-held technology could be an asset to instruction. Some ideas for successful integration follow.

• The beaming function can be used for collaborative projects such as sharing data from science projects, collaborative writing projects, and group research.
• Students can use the e-mail function to e-mail experts such as architects or historians to learn the latest information about a specific topic. More information about setting up an “Ask the Expert” project can be found at http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic14.htm.
• Using the keyboard attachment to turn the palm into miniature computer, the PDA can become be a tool for note taking and composition.
• Teachers can use the beaming function to electronically pass out assignments quickly. Beam to the first student in a group and have them quickly beam to each other.
• Students working in the library can relay questions and findings back and forth to the classroom using the beaming function—it’s quiet and quick.
• Teachers could facilitate individualization of instruction by accessing books online and creating individualized literacy packets by modifying the readability level of the text. All students could be reading the “same” novel even though some have an altered version. This would create a positive self-esteem environment for students with reading difficulties. Software that allows the teacher to modify the rate at which reading passages appear on the PDA screen is also available.
• The “probe” adapter can be used while doing science field projects for collecting data such as water quality. The following website provides descriptions of a variety of science sensor tools (probes) and lesson suggestions: http://probesight.concord.org/curriculum/template_section.htm
• Assessment software allows a teacher to quickly input group behavior characteristics using behavior rubrics. The data can then be downloaded to a master computer through the docking function of the hand held.

iPod

iPod is a brand of portable digital media player marketed by Apple Computer. Apple has had at its company philosophy a focus on education. The iPod was initially seen as a “mobile music” player but has evolved into a computing tool. It now includes a digital voice and sound recorder, with the ability to access the world of sound bytes via the internet, play videos, and store and show text on a miniature screen. These features open the door to additional uses by educators. Apple has an extensive website that provides ideas for iPod use in the classroom as well as the curricular links to standards for all content and grade levels. www.apple.com/education/ipod/

Here are a few more ideas for using iPods in the classroom:

• Record student reading samples with the voice input attachment at the beginning, middle and end of an assessment period. Teacher analysis of the reading samples can be included along with the student work. These files can be added to electronic portfolios as audio files.
• The voice option is a good tool to use for early literacy. Teachers can create letter sound and voice bytes of words or simple stories for students. Individualized files can be easily created to accommodate learner abilities and interests.
• The iPod can be used to record oral histories and combine these files with digital images to create a multimedia project that addresses language arts and social studies concepts.
• Use the iPod for project instructions for a science experiment, have students capture the experimental process using digital cameras, and have the student narrate the process as the assessment artifact for their work. Since this student work is a digital file, it can easily be added to an electronic portfolio without much additional work on the teacher’s part.
• Oral recordings could be created as a report by students a on a topic rather than providing the work in written form.

Conclusion

Schools and teachers that include the use of newer technologies can create opportunities to open doors for students of this generation. The relatively low cost and ease of use of these technologies combined with the students’ natural attractions to these tools compel educators to consider using them in day-to-day instruction. The ideas expressed in this article are a start. Following this article is a list of more resources and examples demonstrating effective educational use of these technologies including places to get started.

Don’t be afraid to ask the kids for ideas and be open to allowing for alternative ways to accomplish the same learning goals using some of these technologies. You could ask, “How can this assignment be done using a blog, iPod, hand-held device, or digital camera?” That can be a great way to get some practical experience with these tools to eventually create a vision for greater integration and more purposeful use of these technologies to improve overall student achievement—which is, of course, our main goal.

Discussion Questions
1. What technologies do your students use every day at home?
2. How can these technologies be used in your classroom?
3. What are some practical challenges to using these technologies? How could you overcome those challenges?
4. How could using one of these technologies improve student engagement and learning?
5. Which tools are the easiest to use and could be utilized right away?
6. How can I influence our school technology plan to include some of these newer technologies?

Resources:
Teaching with Digital Cameras www.tech4learning.com/services/teachingwithdigitalcameras.htm
Using Digital Cameras for Classroom Projects www.4teachers.org/techalong/anderson/index.shtml
The Handheld Educator http://techlearning.com/palm
Handhelds in the Classroom www.education-world.com/a_tech/tech083.shtml
Blogging Basics: Creating Student Journals on the Web www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial037print.shtml
The BlogMeister (free site for setting up your classroom blog site) http://epnweb.org/blogmeister/index.php?blog=
Sample Blog - Mr. Brune's 4th Grade Class http://epnweb.org/blogmeister/blog.php?blogger_id=251
Apple Computers – iPod Site www.apple.com/au/education/ipod/
Iowa's iPod People (how some are using iPods for education) www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050221/BUSINESS05/502210302/1034

Dr. Kathryn Smith is Professor of Instructional Technology from Minnesota State University—Bemidji. Dr. Smith is recognized as one of 20 teacher educators nominated nationally to be an Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE).

Rod Haenke, editor of this Best Practice Series, also contributed to this article. He is a former Catholic-school teacher and has served on the faculties of St. Thomas University and St. Mary’s University in Minnesota. He is founder and director of Instructional Designs, Inc., and can be reached at rhaenke@instructionaldesigns.net.