Teaching with Technology: Calling ALL Communication Arts Teachers

For the last two years I have had 1-1 classroom, and I have loved every minute of it. Okay maybe not every minute, but I definitely cannot imagine going back to life without them. Google Docs has become my students' notebooks, blogs have become writing assignments, and wikis have become part of classroom management. As I look back over the last two years, I know this technology has changed the way I teach, but most importantly I believe my students have benefited tremendously. However, I have struggled continually with how to make sure I use the technology as part of meaningful instruction and assessment. It can be very tempting to fall under the spell of the ta-day, but I know effective use is best. Oddly, enough in this day and age I find it hard to find strong examples of interactive flip charts for middle school students. In addition, I also look for and struggle to find simple, small little technology-based tasks to use for practice or assessment. I belong to a number of communities and I have attended a number of conferences , but I still feel like we, as an Communication Arts/English teachers need to support each other more. Although technology has made my job easier in many ways, I still think I am spending a lot of time grading and creating. What ideas do you have that could help our Comm. Arts community?