Serving your learner

My natural inclination is to design for the imagination. I've long believed that if you give students the best tools to create with, that they then can transfer that knowledge to other applications. By the end of my time at the k-8 school, where I taught the same students for 3 consecutive years, I had 3rd grade students creating Flash animations and writing action-scripting. To me this was a major accomplishment, indicative of incredible potential for these students to become producers of multimedia, interactive projects. Every year, however, the complaint was that the students weren't learning how to format papers in Word. The parents saw computer class as a support to the other academic classes, not as a curriculum in its own right.

Now that I am working with students who have been traditionally under-served, I wonder about my own obligations to provide opportunities for academic success. Should this curriculum emphasize more immediate academic skills, formatting papers, learning powerpoint? Or should I emphasize their personal expression and storytelling through exposure to professional graphics, audio and video software applications.

I already know where I stand on this. I am still in touch with the majority of my inspirational art teachers. I learned more about how to present myself professionally from them than any of my drudgerous academic classes. I don't know if I can inspire disaffected students with any software app, but I feel that it's more likely in Alice, than it is with Excel.

Comments

[Deborah Thomas]

I think that you could and maybe even should teach them how to format in Word - so that they can write and present their thoughts on what they learned in using Flash. (But didn't they learn that stuff in their English classes?) When you have a good reason to format something you don't mind working with an inane tool such as MS Word. (Better yet, use Open Office.) Maybe include a basic session or two on a word tool. BTW, You should never worry about the parents. You should always focus on the students. But, it sounds like you had what I call an "educational opportunity" with the parents. Let the parents know benefits of learning advanced computer skills. I don't like using word but I am glad that I know how.