Balancing Time and Technology

Paula brought up a great point about how teachers frequently complain about the time factor when technology is in use. I must agree that at our middle school, the bandwidth is so low that no one wants to use the wireless laptop labs. And in the hardwired lab, it seems like the connection is so slow that students become easily frustrated. We are actually taking advantage of the Microsoft Settlement money to use it for hardware purchases that we were planning for anyway, and diverting district resources to upgrading the whole shebang. We'll see if it works.

I just wish that many of my colleagues were less interested in covering everything--in order--in an effort to get through the textbook. I have repeatedly tried to convince my colleagues that the textbook is a tool, not the rule. I guess I have the advantage of having to teach subjects that didn't really have a textbook, so I have always had to develop my curriculum and create my own materials. And as a result, I began using online chat to work with students after hours as they wrote debate cases or as a group if we wanted to try and think on a topic brought up in class and then work through it later that evening at home.

I have coached students using Skype (which I don't care for) and I have used Google Talk and Video chat to make contact as well. But again, we're back to time. Technology is the perpetual double-edged sword. It cuts us a break, making us more productive and allowing us to work smarter, and it cuts back at us, demanding more of our precious time, making the work day extend from our traditional 8 am to 4 pm to a seeming 4 am to 11 pm.

Finding a balance is going to be important.