Be Flexible

If there's one thing I've learned from incorporating technology into the curriculum, it's that you'd better be flexible and ready for anything. Unfortunately, technology is not always reliable and you may have to shoot from the hip when it lets you down. For example, just this week I had two flops. First, I had my assignment all planned out to begin with a BrainPOP video and activity on Information Privacy. So, there they are all logging in and one by one I hear "Mrs. Blick!" and "It's not working!" Sure enough, for some reason that one video would not load on any of their computers. Second, I told my students that they would be creating a video presentation to go with a speech they'd already written on a theme to unite our school. I gave them examples from Youtube to look at of what I had in mind for them to create. Well...I hadn't researched quite enough to find the right application to create said videos, and now I'm not sure it's even possible without spending money to buy the tool. imovie won't work for our purpose because the flip cameras have disappeared from our school, and animoto takes "several weeks" to respond to my request for an educator's account. What's left for free is a measly 30 second picture show that doesn't allow for more than 20 characters of text! Still haven't figured out for sure what to do about that. Anyways, headaches aside, I'm still on board and will continue my endeavors to incorporate technology more and more. I'm just sayin'....it's good to be forewarned that you'll probably encounter an occasional glitch in the matrix!