Nancy Keck’s Blog

1.     Who is Ron Smith?

2.     What are some of the technology devices used in his classroom?

3.     Were they (the devices) successful?

4.     What are his feelings about “powerpoints” being used for presentations?

5.     How does he accommodate the varying interests of students in his classroom?

6.     What did he mean by the statement that teaching digital is all “front-loaded”?

7.     What is “Scratch” and is it free?

8.     Explain “Sketch-Up” by Google?

9.     How was it (Sketch-Up) used in his classroom?

10. What is “Blender”?

11. Personal thoughts on Interview…

Answers…

1.     Ron Smith is lead Media teacher at Hollywood High in Hollywood, California.

2.     He has used podcasting, cell phones, video, and digital cameras. He tries to be on the cutting edge of technology.

3.     Students have different interests therefore some devices were successful for some students and not for others.

4.     He doesn’t allow powerpoints. Students should be creating animation or flash videos.

5.     Students have different interests therefore he allows a variety of digital media in the class. He allows the students to expand on their interests and creativity.

6.     His class is major “prep” at the beginning and then the rest of the semester is their “project” time. He gives all the necessary tools needed to be successful and lets the students go out on their own and explore and create.

7.     Scratch is a free program by MIT to create games.

8.     Sketch-Up is a program by Google that allows you to make 3-d models. You can incorporate Google Earth backgrounds into the program.

9.     He had the students create a new city block in New Orleans after Katrina.

10.  Blender is 3-d animation software.

11.  I plan on checking out his 3 programs. I liked the way he had students create city block. I could definitely relate that project to a math classroom (scaled drawings).

     Picture is from Ron’s blog .