Gibabytes

How do I use technology in my classroom, you ask? How did it all begin? Well, I'll tell you.

It all started long ago, back in 1979 when I was a salesman for AT&T. I took an upper management exam that year. I wrote about it once before. It was on paper and audio tape and required multitasking -- careful reading and listening.

In 1985 when I quit selling phones and began selling literature, I stole that fascinating idea and molded it into my own creation, an audiovisual final exam called MegaBrains. Half was on paper, half was on tape, with sound effects woven in (my own addition). I wrote about it once before.

This MegaBrains final inspired me over the years to wire my classroom for maximum sound effects. I began installing speakers in all the corners. I brought an old stereo receiver from home. Students began donating larger and larger speakers. The system grew.

For a few years I was the only classroom in the huge cafeteria building in the center of campus. We could pump up the volume without bothering the neighbors. My journalism students began listening to music while they worked. We played music at lunch.

One day Dan Johnson, a student, connected a computer to the receiver and we had an amplified microphone. We bought talking software and created computerized speeches. We would run our news articles through a voice synthesizer and sit listening to them, and laugh.

Then we bought the old Harvard Presentation Graphics software, and a new era began. HPG was like Microsoft's PowerPoint only much less popular. We made presentations of surveys using pie charts and such, then each student would sit in front of the computer and view the presentation, one at a time.

When I changed rooms two years ago, I set my new room up right from the start. I bought a surround-sound receiver, five speakers, and a sub woofer for my closet. I connected the stereo to my computer and my VCR, all of which are connected to the television.

We watch films in surround sound. We display PowerPoint Presentations with video and sound effects. I have an infrared mouse that allows presenters to advance the screens remotely from the podium.

In my journalism lab we have a computer, Stella, with a video capture card and a CD writer. Students take videos with their home equipment, and Stella digitizes them into MPG files for electronic editing. She can copy the edited files back to tape, CD, or Zip disk. Stella is also on the Internet, compliments of David Talley of Digital America a.k.a. Community Net.

I use PowerPoint a lot. A lot. A whole lot. I just counted. I have 64 presentations. At first I focused only on making elaborate 12-dimensional extravaganzas with hyperlinks, custom shows inside of shows, and Homer Simpson noises. I stressed the program to its crash level and tried all the options.

Now, I'm real comfortable with PowerPoint and I use it to type up lecture notes for random Tuesdays. They flash in the background as I introduce novels or skills to my class. They act as visual support. Students take notes from them. I am freed from the expensive overhead projector and its $40 bulbs. I am freed from excessive writing on the whiteboard. I am freed of excessive handouts written because it was too much information to write on the whiteboard.

Last year I converted my MegaBrains final from aged magnetic audio tape to MP3 format. This allowed me to preserve it as a keepsake. Then I made a new one with all new sounds. I wrote about that once before.

Last year I created a web site for my students at go.to/n5 This year I enhanced it with more material. It's virtually possible to take my Lit Honors class as a correspondence course by following along on the web site.

This year I'm pushing email networking. I required all my students to have email accounts, with parents' permission, of course. I required them to email their email addresses to me, along with their parents' email addresses. I want us all to have a way to stay in touch and ask questions. They can email me their homework when they're absent. I've already had nice chats with a several parents.

That's about it, for now.