The Big Ten

1. Web 2.0 Technology reaches all types of learners by engaging many of the learning traits at one time. With a plethera of choices the sky is the limit for engaging everyone.

2. Digital story tellling, learning is enhanced by the "wow" factor. My students' iMovies kept them on task and learning the entire time. I often found them in the lab during recess because they enjoyed it that much.

3.The Wiki I set up for my 6th graders increased my student engagement ten fold as they had hands on access to endless learning activities. Their writing skills were used far more often as they commented on their classmate's posts, and completed the assignments I assigned.

4. Teacher Tube Resources are easily and quickly accessible. It is a safe site to send students and parents too for homework help. I used this one a great deal.

5. Starfall for my younger students gave one on one engagement. Sites like this can be individualized according to the student's needs with the right software.

6. Teacher collaboration through blogs, websites, ning, wiki, etc offer so much, just about anything a teacher needs to perfect her craft is available. If it is not, just ask, start a discussion, an answer is just a few clicks away.

7. Edsitement, ArtsEd, Edutopia, brainpop, aplusmath, funbrain, kidport, thinkfinity, (just to name a few) all provide lessons for sharing and the adaptations are endless.

8. Creativity has no limit through software, hardware, and the Internet just about any dream is possible. My student completely enjoyed using HTML to create websites. For them to understand how computer language works to make something appear gave them a whole new appreciation for the amount of work and talent it took to start it all up in the first place.

9. Home and school communications and sharing are limitless with such sites as moodle, webgrader, parent connect.

10. Google docs/sites is a great place to place video lessons, homework, student work, which can be posted on protected sites for absent students.

It is hard for me to fathum a classroom where technology is not used but unfortunately I do see it every day. Due to all the reasons mentioned above, behavior issues are almost non existent in the computer lab. Students want to work, to have that hands on engagement, to be interactive with their learning, not passively sitting and listening to lecture. Technology is their future, it must be used to prepare them for it.