Click It: Capturing Connections to Composition on Camera!

My Students

"Blood, Sweat & Tears!"...these are the words that come to mind for my students when faced with the difficult task of analyzing "classic" literature in our classroom that is devoid of technology. To the students, we might as well be in the 1800's reading by candlelight due to our lack of resources.

My students are hard-working, caring and compassionate teenagers.

They attend a school that is known for its philanthropic projects and endeavors. For instance, just last year, our school raised tens of thousands of dollars for a variety of charities: United Way, Relay for Life (benefiting the American Cancer Society), Invisible Children, Million Bones, American Diabetes Association, etc. My students have also led the state in saving the most lives through Blood Drive donations as well as leading their age group in providing food for the homeless and various local shelters through our annual Food Drive campaign. Many of them are involved in a variety of extracurriculars: sports, student clubs, organizations, academic groups, etc. Their hard work pays off academically as they are consistently one of the highest schools in the state when it comes to standardized testing and academic success. Despite the meager resources (especially technologically) they strive to be the best.

My Project

I teach a class where teachable moments occur constantly! Due to the nature of our class: The American Experience, a co-curricular partnership between the American History and American Literature courses....teachable moments present themselves many times during any given class period. Unfortunately, due to our limitations with technological resources, many of these educational sparks are extinguished before we can spark the flames of passionate discourse. With a document cam, we make many connections with the Am. history, literature and art that could spark a lifelong passion for education. For instance, during the discussions about key figures in history, we could place artwork or political cartoons under the document camera to supplement the notes/materials that they are learning at that moment. While reading a piece of literature, we could display corresponding artwork. We could diagram sentences, edit essays, help special needs students understand and comprehend better, etc

A simple document camera.

How much of an impact could one educational tool make on a classroom? Well, after seeing 1st graders utilize this device in a classroom recently, the questions isn't how much of an impact would this resource make on my American Experience class, but how much am I limiting their academic progress by not having this resource that they have in elementary school. Please help me take my students to the next level educationally so I can prepare them for the future!