Spring 2007, "Grand Slam Technology" by Kim Vanderleer

The title of this article immediately caught my attention. I played baseball and was curious to see how something fun could illuminate an oft-considered boring subject like geography. Making learning fun is, in my understanding, one of the most crucial ways to connect with students.

What I found out is that this article focuses on a specific teacher, Pat Shook, who teaches special needs students. When she met with a technology consultant and told him she was working with her students on locating the 50 states, he suggested the SMART Board. Already having one in her classroom, Shook simply utilized it. Knowing that her students loved baseball, she displayed on the SMART Board the logos of all the major league teams. She then asked students to drag each logo to the city/state in which the team played.

I learned several things from this article. Firstly, I learned that the SMART Board has several functions of which I am not aware; being very unfamiliar with this technology, I am excited to learn about it. Secondly, I learned that integrating technology with lesson plans really can make learning more effective and engaging. Thirdly, I learned that special needs children can benefit from technology; in this case, they learned to use their motor skills by dragging the pen or their fingers to move items on the SMART Board. Fourthly, and of most interest to me, is the fact that there is such a thing as a technology consultant. In this case, he travelled to the different schools in the Lexington school district holding seminars but then met with the aforementioned teacher, Shook, individually to address her specific classroom technology issues.