Connecting Culture and Classroom (Chapter 3)

This chapter starts out by having explaining how a teacher had her students make a video of a public service announcement. I remember as a child my aunt taking a college class and having to make a video of a public service announcement. My brother and I were the "stars." It was so much fun. This is the type of learning students will remember. The text states that when teachers experiment with technology they may "create plans that are overly ambitious, complex and time consuming." The text is stating that is because the teacher may be result of their lack of experience. I do agree with this to an extent, but as I stated in my last blog, technology usage can also be dependent on the type of students you have in a classroom too.

With the access to technology and students capabilities it is so much easier for students to engage in different types of cultural settings. Some students do not have much experience outside of their typical living experience/culture. These students can use the internet to research different cultures and see pictures to help them visualize what those different cultures are like.

Reading through the part of the chapter regarding homelessness, along with other parts of the book, it has made me envious to the technology other schools have access to. During this section it also made think about the type of cultural background these students are growing up in. For example, in my classroom I have 4 "homeless" children and this would not be a realistic lesson for my classroom. I realize this is just an example of what can be done with technology and there are tons of different ways to spin this lesson and topics to use based on cultural background. It also makes me think of how amazing it would be to have access to technology such as flip cameras, or even cameras for that matter, that allow students to take pictures of their findings. This would be a neat process for students when creating their powerpoints to be able to add the pictures that they took themselves to that lesson.

I like the activity at the end of this chapter that involves the five steps of access, analysis, composition, reflection, and taking action. This may be something neat to try in our writers workshop. It may take more time, but the students may enjoy this process before writing.