Once again, I find myself in a role to teach technology in a place with limited tech resources. I think I’m getting quite good at adapting technology lessons to fit my environment and thought I would share for anyone who may be feeling overwhelmed by the idea of teaching ICT in a limited-technology environment.
The student population (we currently only have nursery through grade 3) at my current school has very limited technology skills. In Myanamar, the majority of my students were familiar with blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, and various apps they play with on devices at home. This isn’t the case with my students in Chiang Mai. Few of them ever use any type of smart phone or tablet, and forget about computer skills.
As their teachers, we need to develop these skills and the vocabulary to accompany them.
We have twenty JPads that run on an old Android operating system, that can’t be updated, for the entire school to share. We also 2 to 4 desktop computers per class. We have WiFi, but some locations in the building are better than others.
You may find yourself in a school with less internet, or less devices. Don’t be discouraged, it is still possible to teach the skills needed to be responsible, contributing digital citizens!
Here’s my advice:
- Start SMALL.
I am encouraging all of the teachers at my school to check out the jPads for at least half an hour a week for “exploring” time. Here are my objectives for the first few weeks of exploration for all grade levels (not all in one half-hour session):
I can be a digital citizen by taking care of the jPad. That means,
- being gentle and careful while I use it
- always holding it with 2 hands
- deleting my own work (unless told otherwise)
- NOT deleting work that isn’t mine
- closing apps when I’m done
- turning the jPad off before giving it back
I can take pictures and videos from both directions.
I can delete pictures and videos.
I can open apps.
I can close apps.
As students are working to meet these objectives they are playing with some of the apps I’ve loaded on the devices so that they will be familiar with them when they are used later in the year. Some kids have chosen to play with Video Maker, others Lensoo Create, and some PicCollage. This is fantastic because there will be different “experts” to help when we need to learn how to use those apps.
2. Don’t worry if your school doesn’t have devices for each student to use.
There are ways around this.
One that worked successfully for me was BYOD. At least one student in each group of 5 had a tablet or phone they were allowed to bring for collaboration on a project last year. I did have one student step on his iPad and crack the screen, but luckily parents had signed an this agreement and it wasn’t an issue.
Do you have a teacher computer set up to a projector? A lot of what I teach my students is done as a class with my computer screen projected on the board. To be honest, the kids taught me just as much as I taught them during these lessons. When something would go wrong, or I was struggling to figure something out, there was always at least one kid who knew how to troubleshoot.
You can always use what I’ve decided to call a “pre-tech” approach, as well. This is a big part of what I am currently doing at APIS because I want to develop the concepts and vocabulary, but we don’t have the devices to get it going yet.
I am turning bulletin boards in to “blogs” and providing students with paper “Tweets”.
I’ve also had students create avatars and update their “status” using dry-erase markers on laminated paper posted outside of the classroom.
Paper blogging using notebooks has also been effective and the skills will hopefully transfer when we get better devices.
Implementing these activities is giving students the experience of responding and “posting” in a way that is educationally appropriate and responsible.
