Techno Teaching

I attended an awesome featured session at the end of the day on Friday.  It was a very impromptu decision to attend and I did not know what to expect.  When we walked through the doorway and electronic music was playing, bass pounding, I knew I had picked the right session.  I am a huge fan of all different kinds of electronic music and was curious how Gary Abud was going to relate this genre of music to education.  As the presentation went on, his soft mellow voice a contrast to the electronic tracks he was playing, I questioned how I had never seen before how alike electronic DJs and educators are.

Abud's presentation did more than just hold my attention.  It blew my mind.  He compared both the roles of electronic DJs and educators and how the two are generally perceived by society.  Electronic DJS and teachers alike are up against the idea that anyone can do what they can do, that to be a DJ or a teacher you simply have to "press play".  And while that certainly is true of some DJs and some teachers, an effective teacher or a good DJ would never have achieved success if all he or she did was "press play".  Electronic DJs perform live and they produce music.  Teachers do the same thing: they teach (perform live) and produce lessons.  There is a tremendous amount of behind the scenes work that goes on in order to make the live performances of electronic DJs and teachers a success.  During the performance, electronic DJs and teachers must make multiple real time decisions in their heads according to the crowd and overall feeling of the show.  

Abud emphasized the parallels between teaching and DJing, and argued to his audience of educators, "We have something to learn from DJs."  There are two things that DJs do really well, according to Abud: they mix other people's music and they produce their own.  This concept of remixing is one he believes could transform teaching if more teachers and schools were to support this kind of collaboration.  There is this term, co-opetition, that is used to describe a working relationship that is both collaborative and competitive.  Co-opetition involves promoting your own work, while also promoting the work of others - a win-win.  Abud suggests teachers share their lesson plans with each other in the same way that DJs sample each others' music.  "Imagine a world," he said, "in which AWESOME lesson plans went viral the same way that AWESOME electronic tracks do."  

The other thing that teachers can learn from DJs is the art of creating epic experiences.  People don't just go to electronic music shows for the music, but for the overall experience.  "DJs help their audiences know how to move, no matter how familiar they are with the music or how well they can dance," says Abud.  This is an engagement technique that should be mirrored in the classroom.  There is a sense of mutual respect at electronic music shows.  As I know from experience, when someone is feeling the love and feeling the music at a show, they form a heart with their hands and hold it up.  What if that happened in the classroom?  

I am left thinking about how I can create epic experiences in my English classroom, how I can engage my audience of students in the same way that electronic DJs capture their audiences at a show.  I think Abud is right on with this stuff, and as a someone who frequently attends electronic shows and music festivals I can attest to the unbelievable feeling one gets from being at these performances.  How can I get my students to feel that way about English class?  

Using Google Presentation to Complicate Ideas about Heroes

Recently, a laptop cart was unearthed from the dark, mysterious depths of the farthest corner of the media center at my school.  The laptops came out of nowhere; I was shocked, especially because I thought such a find would spark excitement and chatter amongst teachers and fighting to be the first to reach the sign-up sheet.  This wasn't the case.  The only reason I found out about their existence is because I saw one of the security guards pushing the cart around and I inquired about his cargo.   For a school where the only available computer lab houses three rows of slow, outdated, incredibly unreliable computers, a laptop cart filled with a fairly new set of sleek HP computers changes everything (well, maybe...).

I have been struggling to come up a creative and innovative way of using technology in my classroom for the Tech Teach-In.  The discovery of the laptop cart at my school has created a number of possibilities for this lesson that didn't exist before.  It will no longer be a hassle and big ordeal for students to have the chance to use computers, and I am hoping that the internet connection will be much more reliable than students are used to in the computer lab.  The incorporation of technology in the classroom will be much more fluid.  I use Google Presentations frequently to guide and support my lessons, often documenting students' thoughts and questions in the presentation.  I have also had students set up Google accounts themselves, not only to use for the purposes of our class, but also to use professionally.  At the start of the term, one of the first things I had them do was create a slide in  a class Google Presentation about themselves (like Rory had us do in the fall).  This was a lengthy process because most of my students are nowhere near proficient at using computers, let alone navigating Google Drive.  Familiarizing students with Google Drive is one of my primary learning goals for this term, and because we have already spent a decent amount of time setting up their accounts and using Drive for their slides I am thinking that I want to use Google Drive for my technology teach-in.  Though, one other thought that has come up with the laptop cart is to use WordPress to introduce my students to the concept of blogging, particularly as a way for them to stay involved in the reading we do in class.

Within the next two weeks, we will be starting the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.  Prior to reading the novel, I will be introducing the pattern of the hero's journey and students will do some work thinking about the characteristics of heroes and what it means to be one.  I am thinking that I will utilize the practice students have had creating Google Presentation slides about themselves to create a slide about one of their heroes or a slide depicting their idea of a true hero.  Like I asked them to do in the slide they created about themselves, they would describe their idea of a hero using ten words, an image, and a quote that would represent what they think a hero should be.  Students would create the slide after we spend some time discussing and unpacking their initial ideas about heroes.  We will read at least one article that challenges the idea that heroes must be epic and godly, separate from normal men and women.  The presentation slide will be a formative assessment that will serve as evidence of how students' ideas about heroes are beginning to change or become more complicated.