1) Have your students log on to the computers. Yes, sometimes they run slowly and can take up a lot of valuable class time while you wait for updates to download and students' profiles to load... but this is usually not the case in those classrooms where the students log on every day! If you log on to the network more regularly, and have students use the same computer whenever possible, you'll see the time it takes to get started each day greatly decrease.
2) What about an open-laptop (or -computer, -mobile-device, -phone) test? If you're worried about students using technology to cheat, try making the assessments something they CAN'T cheat on! Require an original answer/solution/writing/project based on research. Help teach them to think for themselves at the same time you help them become familiar with effective use of technology! Read more about open-computer testing.
3) Assign projects that teach technology operations and concepts. To complete the assignments driven by your curricular content, your students may also need to master tech skills, such as uploading files to the Internet or network, saving and converting files to different file extensions, editing web pages or web-based presentations and videos, and collaborating and sharing with classmates and other students. These projects can be slow-moving and frustrating at first, but you will be surprised how quickly your students learn to do what is required of them to complete these projects, and how well they'll apply that knowledge to future assignments. Check out these examples.
4) Provide options for assignments. Rather than direct all students to make a video using Windows Movie Maker (or one specific program or application you are comfortable using), instead leave the medium open to student choice, and focus your rubric on the essential content from your curriculum and the specs for the final product they must create. Not only does this free you up to focus on the content, it allows students to use different media that they find exciting, interesting and engaging. One student might use Prezi, one might design a web page, one might make a travel brochure or newspaper, and one might make a video. Interested in some new research behind this topic? Check out this piece from International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. With any age, the teacher does not need to be an expert in all the different applications and programs the students may choose to use. The teacher just needs to be an expert in the content, set the expectations and guidelines, and manage a room of students as they learn different types of technology. You might find, as I have, that we can learn a lot about the tech from our students as we teach the content.
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