I had a great lesson today with one of my fifth-grade classes. I wanted them to learn how to do tables in Word, so I decided to use the planets as an easy example. Now suppose that I had started the lesson by saying, “Boys and girls, today you’re going to learn how to make tables in Word.” They would have been asleep before I could show them my sample. But instead I started by asking them if they had heard any hot news about the planets in the last few weeks. A bunch of hands shot up, and they started to tell me about mysterious new planets and something about asteroids and something about a probe that just reached the heliosphere. (That last bit came from Nick – he’s into science.)
So we talked for a few minutes about the Solar System and planets and Pluto, because the right answer was that Pluto is no longer a regular planet, but has been demoted to dwarf-planet status. But of course there is really no right answer. The right answer was their interest and enthusiasm and the fact that they were listening and engaged and raising their hands and even jumping out of their seats. We even managed to carry quite a bit of that energy into making the table in Word.
What’s the moral for teaching about technology? We don’t teach computer skills in isolation. Lessons always have to be about more than buttons and menus and toolbars. They have to be about planets and pandas and football players. We know this as a matter of course for elementary students, but sometimes we forget that it matters just as much for the middle school crowd.