About ClassTech

“The technology at the leading edge changes so rapidly that you have to keep current after you get out of school. I think probably the most important thing is having good fundamentals.”  Gordon Moore, Founder of Intel and the namesake of “Moore’s Law” (the pace of tech innovation will will double every 1 1/2 years).

For many years, one of the top few searches on Google has been “yahoo”, an indication that most Americans, despite the advances in technology and computing, are still wandering throughout the interwebs, trying to figure out what the heck to do with it.  As a teacher, I can’t tell you how many students I have who can’t handle the pdf files I send them or who don’t have a computer at home because it “got too many viruses.”  How are our students, the future of America, supposed to compete in a growing international job market if they can’t successfully complete simple computer tasks?

Juxtapose this with the overwhelming evidence in educational studies that incorporating technology into classroom instruction not only increases student engagement, but also increases student achievement when used properly.  Even schools that struggle with their budget have found that expensive Chemistry demonstrations can be replaced by youtube videos, written student work can be documented using e-portfolios, Physics labs that cost 500 dollars a person can be replaced by a simple java applet, and teacher/administrator communication and collaboration can be enhanced by well designed computing systems.

All this indicates to me that we are at an exciting time in education.  As projectors, computers, smart boards, tablet PCs, digital music players/recorders, robotics, audience response systems and other incredible technological tools begin to work their way into the classroom, there is so much potential for students to not only learn the course content, but also to learn the skills and tools they need to be successful in a changing and fast-paced technological economy.  In addition, the more we get students using digital devices to input their answers, to document their work, even to track their attendance, the more data becomes available in the classroom, in the school, and even across the country.    Armed with this breadth of information, school teachers and administrators are in a unique place to push the students lagging behind, to close the racial and socio-economic achievement gap, and to develop targeted strategies that work for all students.

My writing here has two objectives.  First, as a high school physics teacher struggling to meet the needs of every student, and as a teacher in a small urban charter school that takes some measures to support instructional technology, but doesn’t go all the way, I hope to document the work I put into using technology in the classroom.  My hope is that teachers across the country will share my posts with each other, discuss the possibilities, and implement the tools I’ve found to be successful in their own classrooms.  Secondly, I want to show the the success that these strategies can bring to a mixed population of students.  Teachers and administrators can use my work as a reference to see that the dollars put into classroom and school-wide technology, when implemented correctly, pays off in huge ways in student achievement.
The time is ripe for including as much technology in the classroom as we can afford.  We owe it to our children to teach them the tools they need: concrete technological skills, technologically-enhanced course content, and the habits of mind to be successful in a fast-paced, continuously-changing world.

About the Blogger:

Michael Kadin is a fresh-out-of-college high school Physics teacher in a small urban charter school outside Boston, MA.  He is a published author of multiple research papers on thermally-aware multi-core processors, stemming off of his research towards his degree is in Electrical Engineering from Brown University.   As an undergraduate, he also completed the UTEP (Undergraduate Teacher Education Program) and is a licensed teacher in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island.  His current interests have drifted from technology itself towards its integration into instruction, particularly in areas of low socio-economic status and where racial inequities show their worst effects.