Instructional Strategies for the One Computer Classroom

 

1.             Use the computer as a research station in your classroom. Keep multimedia encyclopedias and Internet access available for your students to use on an as-needed basis. Assign a trusted student the role of "researcher" to look up information.

 

2.           Use multimedia to enliven your lectures: highlight images from multimedia encyclopedias, other reference materials and the Internet; use a presentation program to present key concepts and thoughts.

 

3.           Show a finished product before sending your students into the lab to work on their own assignments.

 

4.             After they have created their own presentation, use the classroom computer for them to present their work to the class.

 

5.           "Hands On is Minds On" - engaging students in interactive projects (e-mail, on-line simulation, web page creation, multi-media presentations, etc. ) will involve them actively in learning.

 

6.           Visit the web sites you plan to use for your lesson earlier in the day so that the web sites are in the computer's cache. That way, you don't have to rely on the Internet connection to bring up the web pages. Make sure to preview as many layers into the web site as you think students will visit.

 

 

7.           The solo computer can be used as one of several stations in your classroom.  Students could perform technology tasks at this station while performing non-technology tasks at other stations.

 

8.           You can use cooperative groups to give one group access to the computer during a project, while the others use traditional means. Explain to the students that over the semester their group will get an opportunity to use the computer.

 

9.           Create a rotation schedule and provide individual student access to the computer for guided activities (create current event summaries, track the progress of legislation, review games - see www.quia.com or www.funbrain.com).

 

10.        Create a class newsletter where individual or groups of students can each create newsletters for different units.  Each group will be assigned to a unit throughout the semester.