http://nycwp.net/nancybrodsky/?p=49

My seniors are reading Othello, and are unfamiliar with the historical and geographical context of the play. Using Shakespeare Set Free, I came up with a list of 7 topics related to the context of the play. I made a hand-out that listed the topic, a space to fill in the source of information and a space for recording the information found about that topic. I split the class up into seven small groups and gave each group a laptop. I recommended they use wikipedia.org and a google search, which they did. Most of the kids did their work but I had to take a laptop from one student who was showing off a photograph of a scantily clad woman. No questions, no discussion, no second chances…I just went over to his desk and took the laptop back. This was after I specifically told them their first priority was the work and not MySpace or any other site. Grr… this kind of behavior makes me not want to use the laptops at all. What is really frustrating is that the Department of Education tightened the Symantec security criteria over the February break so that students looking for information on Wikipedia couldn’t find everything they needed, even though the information was legit and appropriate but yet, that other student had no problem opening pages with inappropriate sexual content. Where’s the justice!? I’m going to start letting the kids use the proxy bypass site, because the DOE has no idea what they are doing.

I’m hoping to get back into blogging soon. We have a UFT teachers’ center in our school now and Norm, the center staff, introduced me to the SmartBoard. I’ve admired them from afar for awhile now but never actually to play with one. I’ll be using the SmartBoard to give a whole class introduction to blogging, which I wasn’t able to do before with the individual laptops and the distractions that come with it.

[composed and posted with ecto]

Share This