Some twist of fate tossed me and my wonderful Jesus of Nazareth students into a brand new classroom outfitted with the wizardry of technology. Tuesday morning I entered the room, walked to the “rostrum” (not sure of the right word here), and put down my book bag — a Stanley Traveller — and then began to explore all the techno stuff.
\nHere are my observations:
\nFirst, there was a screen on which we could put images, but they were recessed into the ceiling and I couldn’t for the life of me find a switch that lowered them — not that I would need them.
\nSecond, a big black box full of lights — like the cockpit of an aeroplane — and switches and lines and holes. I assume that thing was the power and the brains of all the fancy stuff that was on the “rostrum.”
\nWhich was my main problem: there were wires going in all directions. There was a white board with two switches and a small light-like looking object that a student told me I could use to write on a piece of paper and it will show up on the screen (which, of course, was recessed and I didn’t know how to lower). Another techno gadget did something else, but I never figured what it did.
\nNow, I’m sure our school kindly thought it would be good for me to have a nice classroom for my students, and I appreciate it, but I’ll be informing them soon that someone else might find such a classroom more to their style.
\nI’ll be getting a chair and sitting at the table in the front row. I’m pumped about this class — should be lots of fun.
\nFYI: My new rule about using computers only in the front row: not even a smidgeon of a protest. Nada. Nichts. But, then again, one of the two students using a computer was using an Apple PowerBook, and I can’t believe such folks would ever think of surfing the net during class!
\nWe’re off to a good start. I haven’t brought up the issue of cell phones during quizzes yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some twist of fate tossed me and my wonderful Jesus of Nazareth students into a brand new classroom outfitted with the wizardry of technology. Tuesday morning I entered the room, walked to the “rostrum” (not sure of the right word here), and put down my book bag — a Stanley Traveller — and then began…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"yoast_head":"\n