Virtual Classroom

The virtual classroom experience last Thursday evening was great. For those of you that do instant messaging, it will be a breeze for you. After participating I thought about what a wonderful tool it would be to use for a student who is out of school for an extended period of time - it has a whiteboard you can write on and provides opportunities to have conversations with the student. It could certainly be a benefit to the student in any number of situations.

Technology Creativity

I've been thinking a lot about the lack of opportunity for music and art in the classroom and how all this technology could provide answers for this problem. It will not be the solution that educators would like (funding for more art and music classes) but an opportunity to at least keep the creativity of the children alive and well. Allowing students to create powerpoints, podcasts, story boards, etc. we enpower the students to take control of their imagination and create "masterpieces" using musical pieces, photography, and other types of artwork. There are numerous ideas using hardware and software to incorporate more music and art into lesson plans for other areas of study. This at least gives the students exposure to some possibly new experiences.