So, today I did a fantastic task with my year 12s. They were quiet for nearly eighty minutes as they diligently worked their way through critical analytical tasks. There’s a myth going around that such attention can only be maintained now if you stick them in front of a computer, or give them an iPod.
To that, I say: really???
Because all I gave them was some butcher’s paper, and a permanent marker!
TEACHER 1: TECHNOLOGY: 0!!!!!!
The fact of the matter is, MP3s are rubbish. I bought one three years ago and it emerged from the box broken – but nobody would give me my money back. And that brings me to today’s topic:
Technology = potential for epic fail.
How many times have you, as a teacher, borrowed the laptops with some “great” lesson plan in mind, only to have no connection to the wireless network?
Epic fail. (I bet there is no wireless in Namibia, either – and I mean that in a very good way!)
Or the kid in the class before yours ripped the space bar off every single laptop, so now none of them are useful for the “awesome” powerpoints the students were going to make?
Disastrous.
But butcher’s paper never fails. It’s thick and course and ugly. Permanent marker glides right over it, so that it will never fade in a million years. Show me a word document that you can still open in five – after sixteen updated programmes render it unrecognised by the very same software that made it! (Maybe – I’m not really up with the lingo). It might tear, yes – but drop a computer and see what happens. It will DEFINITELY smash!
I’m putting in a call to the government of Namibia, and if they have butcher’s paper – I’m going!!
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