Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Old School--New School

Well, I'm back at school. On both sides of the desk. I'm teaching English two days a week and taking two classes at U Mass Boston on Thursday nights, getting training to learn how to create web-based instruction. It's exhilarating to be back at school. To be quite honest, I'm one of those geeks who wanders through Staples, deliberating the merits of one binder over another. (BTW, there's a new model that has a little window on the spine for a label...)

Some observations:

Red Bull is the students' drink of choice.
Texting in class is commonplace. "But it's rude," I said to Alex, who replied, "Why?"
There is and will always be students who do assignments at the last minute.
Students can doze just as easily through a Power Point presentation as a lecture.
All that important information covered on the first night of class never sinks in.
You Tube videos can provide wonderful teachable content.
Streaming video broadcast from the library and into the classroom is the most amazing technological invention ever.