Tech Tidings

Yesterday a classroom teacher asked for help ‘downloading’ a video from You Tube…Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America”…to use in class. I did a quick Google search and discovered vixy.net. At home last night, one of my Tweets suggested I use Zamzar to convert the file. I did try it and just needed to fill in a couple of blanks, The link was emailed to me , I downloaded the converted video and I now have a copy for the teacher to use for an educational purpose. Yes, at the moment, You Tube is accessible here at work, but she wants to show it in May. Who knows if it could be pulled up directly from You Tube at that time.

I heard a report the other day that schools in the USA were beginning to use Singapore Math. I heard that Florida is going to demand 30 minutes of daily consecutive PE. I heard that Science and Social Studies are two subjects that are increasingly absent from daily lesson plans in the elementary school.

What needs to change? Perhaps it is time to revisit the length of the school day? Summer vacation? School calendar?

Has technology really saved teacher’s time?