morning IM chats on teaching with technology

A colleague brought up the recent inquiry on technology in the classroom here which led to my general use of high technology in the classroom as found below:

me:

10:33 way back when i started teaching

10:34 my colleagues introduced me to the most handy bit of kit

10:34 it’s called a codex

10:34 it is a collection of paper bound at the edge with glue or other means

10:34 now quite amazingly… you’d think that this bit of technical kit, well, it’s useless.

10:35 but people have appropriated it and filled it with all kinds of things, pictures, drawings, and words

10:35 some people have even taken the explicit step of ordering these things, pictures and words in a way that apparently is intended to convey meaning

interlocutor:

10:36 well that’s crazy

me:

10:36 and i’m like ‘holy cow!’

10:36 you mean someone

10:36 has gathered all their knowledge on a topic

10:36 and put it in a codex

10:36 and students can get hold of this thing

10:36 isn’t that dangerous?

interlocutor:

10:36 HORRIBLY DANGEROUS

me:

10:36 i mean what if it tells them how to skip class

10:37 or worse, how to fold their graded assignments in to lewd origami?

interlocutor:

10:37 I’m shocked and apalled

me:

10:37 but then i saw one of these things, and tried to use it in class

10:37 and OMG

10:37 the students that could read and spent time reading it…

10:37 their performance improved dramatically

10:37 no more did they just have to reiterate what i said before

10:38 though that is always appreciated, and some still strive for that

10:38 they could actually ‘interpret the meanings’ in the codex and occasionally you find one or two that will combine those meanings with other meanings and actually teach me something

10:38 man… that’s scary

10:39 but it adds a new exciting edge to the classroom

10:39 so… technology in the classroom, it’s great!

interlocutor:

10:41 I dunno

10:41 it sounds…dangerous

me:

10:42 well, I have to admit that it is actually slightly less dangerous than having the students re-enact the lessons of history with pointed sticks and rocks, though that was all in all very learning intensive on many levels