I facilitated a PD last week on technology use in the classroom. The hour-ish session was a whirlwind run through of research behind technology use, various forms of technology, critical media literacy, and a plea for further exploration of site-based cell phone and social networking use. Along the way, I presented how I use Flip cameras, why I hate PowerPoint (even as people followed along with my Google presentation!), how to literally plug in an LCD projector, defined wikis and blogs, how to show YouTube videos even though the site is blocked, and explained that – sadly – I cannot fix the school’s myriad nonfunctional printers.

Though it was entirely too fast, my goals were to highlight the expertise already present in my attendees’ classrooms and to present as many different ideas that they could use as possible. Several tips seemed to resonate most strongly with the group; the use of PowerPoint as a rudimentary film making tool, for instance, was thrilling for some teachers (and I’m thankful to Jeff Share for being able to adapt this example from him). My hope was that the group would identify areas they would like to more intensely focus on in the future. Feedback was quite positive afterward, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a site-based collaborator to further highlight the technology wizardry springing up in our classrooms.