Randy Turner's Blog - Posts Tagged "discussion"
The Trouble with Technology
As the school district where I teach moves rapidly toward becoming one of the most modern in the United States, I received a number of reminders yesterday of the pitfalls of relying too much on technology.
For years, I have shown my eighth graders a news clip from the year 2000 about a 13-year-old boy who challenges a 15-year-old to a fight as they are riding the school bus home. When they get off the bus, the 15-year-old hits the 13-year-old on the back of the head, causing the younger boy to fall to the ground fatally wounded.
After the 13-year-old is pulled off life support, the older boy is charged with felony murder and is tried as an adult. After he is convicted, by Georgia law he is automatically sentenced to life in prison.
The 20-minute video brings up three issues that have always sparked great discussions:
1. Should a 15-year-old stand trial as an adult and should someone that young be sentenced to life in prison?
2. Should parents be held responsible for the acts of their children? The dead boy's parents state in this video that they think the killer's parents should also be in prison.
3. What should schools do to protect children? It is revealed in the video that the killer had received 34 referrals, been suspended 11 times, and had threatened to kill one girl and burn down her home.
The Miller/Belluardo discussion is one the students have always found fascinating, but I dropped it last year because of technology. My only copy of the video was on an old fashioned videocassette.
This year, I decided to bring back the case as a good way to end the first quarter. I took my camcorder and shot the story as it was playing on my TV screen. Though that it is never pretty, it worked, so I thought I was ready for a day of stimulating discussions.
Overconfidence is never a good thing.
The next morning, I arrived at school at 6:40 a.m., knowing I only had a short time to load the video onto my school-issued laptop since we had a professional development training meeting scheduled for 7:15 a.m.
The process of loading the video into I-Movie went smoothly until the very end when a message popped onto the screen showing an error. The computer I have is one of the oldest still being used in the district and apparently, the I-Movie on it was out of date. At that point, it was almost time for the meeting.
I took my computer and camcorder with me and another teacher agreed to load the video. I also knew I had the option of getting another laptop when I returned to my classroom after the meeting.
When the meeting concluded, the video was still loading on my colleague's computer, but I decided to hedge my bet, but grabbing a second laptop from our mobile I-cart and loading it there as well.
I was in the middle of that process when the math teacher who has been using the computer cart this week, came in and asked me if I was using computer number 10. I was. "That one has been causing us problems," he said. Sure enough, moments later, the computer screwed up.
One more strike against technology.
I retrieved another laptop from the cart and began the process for the third time (four counting my colleague's efforts). As I was starting, the fire alarm sounded.
We hurried for the exits, figuring it was a drill. As it turned out, it wasn't. Some smoke had set off a faulty sensor and we had to stay outside for more than half an hour as the fire department made sure the sensor was all right and we could return to classes.
When we finally got back into the building, we immediately had to go to our commons area for an assembly featuring a motivational speaker. I stayed in my room long enough to load the video. This time, it worked.
I needed to use the camcorder to video the assembly so I took it to one of the members of the Journalism Club She had just begun shooting when the camcorder died. I had let the battery run down while downloading the video.
I hurriedly returned it to my room, plugging it in so it could recharge. After the assembly, there was not enough time left in my third hour class to show the video, so I began setting it up for fourth hour and discovered that the mirroring function of my laptop was not working which meant I could not show it on the whiteboard.
We were already into fourth hour when I sent a student to see if our tech guy was available. He came into my classroom moments later and, at first, he could not figure out what the problem was. Then he hit the "Eureka" moment, as he discovered that I had unplugged the device so I could recharge my camcorder.
With that fixed, he left, and I prepared to show the video. Only I could not see the video on my screen. I could hear it, but I couldn't see it. Unforgivably, I snapped at my students, who were acting as any students would act if their teacher was playing with technology in front of the room when it was time for class to be in session. (They will receive an apology today.)
By the time, I finally found it, I was disheartened to discover that the sound on the first part of the video was not loud enough for the students to hear it- and I still had half an hour of class and nothing left to do.
As usual, I had a fallback plan, and we had a classroom discussion based on the positive and negative things that had happened to the students during the first quarter and somehow, it turned into a great discussion.
Unable to show the video, I continued with the discussions during my final two classes. They turned into some of the best discussions we have had all year, and we have had some good ones.
Last night, I reshot the Miller/Belluardo video on my IPod and I am going to try it again. The IPod loads on my IPhoto, which has been working, but I am never going to get overconfident again.
I have a backup plan just in case.
Don't you just love technology?
For years, I have shown my eighth graders a news clip from the year 2000 about a 13-year-old boy who challenges a 15-year-old to a fight as they are riding the school bus home. When they get off the bus, the 15-year-old hits the 13-year-old on the back of the head, causing the younger boy to fall to the ground fatally wounded.
After the 13-year-old is pulled off life support, the older boy is charged with felony murder and is tried as an adult. After he is convicted, by Georgia law he is automatically sentenced to life in prison.
The 20-minute video brings up three issues that have always sparked great discussions:
1. Should a 15-year-old stand trial as an adult and should someone that young be sentenced to life in prison?
2. Should parents be held responsible for the acts of their children? The dead boy's parents state in this video that they think the killer's parents should also be in prison.
3. What should schools do to protect children? It is revealed in the video that the killer had received 34 referrals, been suspended 11 times, and had threatened to kill one girl and burn down her home.
The Miller/Belluardo discussion is one the students have always found fascinating, but I dropped it last year because of technology. My only copy of the video was on an old fashioned videocassette.
This year, I decided to bring back the case as a good way to end the first quarter. I took my camcorder and shot the story as it was playing on my TV screen. Though that it is never pretty, it worked, so I thought I was ready for a day of stimulating discussions.
Overconfidence is never a good thing.
The next morning, I arrived at school at 6:40 a.m., knowing I only had a short time to load the video onto my school-issued laptop since we had a professional development training meeting scheduled for 7:15 a.m.
The process of loading the video into I-Movie went smoothly until the very end when a message popped onto the screen showing an error. The computer I have is one of the oldest still being used in the district and apparently, the I-Movie on it was out of date. At that point, it was almost time for the meeting.
I took my computer and camcorder with me and another teacher agreed to load the video. I also knew I had the option of getting another laptop when I returned to my classroom after the meeting.
When the meeting concluded, the video was still loading on my colleague's computer, but I decided to hedge my bet, but grabbing a second laptop from our mobile I-cart and loading it there as well.
I was in the middle of that process when the math teacher who has been using the computer cart this week, came in and asked me if I was using computer number 10. I was. "That one has been causing us problems," he said. Sure enough, moments later, the computer screwed up.
One more strike against technology.
I retrieved another laptop from the cart and began the process for the third time (four counting my colleague's efforts). As I was starting, the fire alarm sounded.
We hurried for the exits, figuring it was a drill. As it turned out, it wasn't. Some smoke had set off a faulty sensor and we had to stay outside for more than half an hour as the fire department made sure the sensor was all right and we could return to classes.
When we finally got back into the building, we immediately had to go to our commons area for an assembly featuring a motivational speaker. I stayed in my room long enough to load the video. This time, it worked.
I needed to use the camcorder to video the assembly so I took it to one of the members of the Journalism Club She had just begun shooting when the camcorder died. I had let the battery run down while downloading the video.
I hurriedly returned it to my room, plugging it in so it could recharge. After the assembly, there was not enough time left in my third hour class to show the video, so I began setting it up for fourth hour and discovered that the mirroring function of my laptop was not working which meant I could not show it on the whiteboard.
We were already into fourth hour when I sent a student to see if our tech guy was available. He came into my classroom moments later and, at first, he could not figure out what the problem was. Then he hit the "Eureka" moment, as he discovered that I had unplugged the device so I could recharge my camcorder.
With that fixed, he left, and I prepared to show the video. Only I could not see the video on my screen. I could hear it, but I couldn't see it. Unforgivably, I snapped at my students, who were acting as any students would act if their teacher was playing with technology in front of the room when it was time for class to be in session. (They will receive an apology today.)
By the time, I finally found it, I was disheartened to discover that the sound on the first part of the video was not loud enough for the students to hear it- and I still had half an hour of class and nothing left to do.
As usual, I had a fallback plan, and we had a classroom discussion based on the positive and negative things that had happened to the students during the first quarter and somehow, it turned into a great discussion.
Unable to show the video, I continued with the discussions during my final two classes. They turned into some of the best discussions we have had all year, and we have had some good ones.
Last night, I reshot the Miller/Belluardo video on my IPod and I am going to try it again. The IPod loads on my IPhoto, which has been working, but I am never going to get overconfident again.
I have a backup plan just in case.
Don't you just love technology?
