As some of you may be aware Australian schools are almost over for 2008 and during the last week at our school, like many other schools, we run a modified activiyty program for the remaining year 7, 8 & 9 students. Anyway I had to chuckle to myself today when a staff member from my school said ‘Why can’t we have Activity week all the time? My kids were brilliant today and really engaged with the task’. Now I shouldnt be laughing but I found this to be quite funny because this particular teacher has had lots of trouble within their classes throughout the year.
This teacher, lets call them Teacher B, is by a longshot the most traditional teacher we have at our school, who struggles to read an email and shoots down any ICT based professional development with statements like ‘Ohh not another computer session’ and ‘is there a who cares column?’. The session Teacher B choose to run was by no means of a digital format but all the same the kids were right into it. So why did I find this funny? Well it proves a point and highlights just how our students think in the 21st century.
The truth is, if Teacher B gave themselves a chance to learn a few quick and easy ways of integrating ICT in their lessons, then they may in fact be finishing everyday with similar statements about their classes. One thing I know for sure is that the student’s would be thankful