Punting When Technology Fails

It's Wednesday, and that means it is "Hump Day!" You are now half-way through your week, and there is light at the end of the tunnel! We are here to brighten your day with Wise Guys Words of Wisdom!

This feature will be appearing on our blog once a week, on Wednesdays from mid August to mid June. The goal is for you to leave with a smile on your face and hopefully a spring in your step to help you finish off the week of school.

The seventh installment is about what to do when technology fails in your lesson. We hope our tips below will be useful when this problem occurs in your classroom!

You have the perfect lesson all set up. You've got your document camera ready to go, your projector is displaying on your screen, your computer is all set as well. Then, snap, there is a glitch. You can't get the technology to work! Your mind is racing. Your heat is pounding. Twenty-five sets of eyes are staring at you. What do you do? Do you freak out and panic? No! You do what all great teachers do, you punt!

So what does "punt" mean in teaching? Well, it means that you go to plan B. You might ask, "What is Plan B?" Very simply stated it is your bag of tricks. It is the teacher intuition that takes over. You add lib and pull it off like the professional you are. The students don't have a clue that your perfect lesson just went down the drain. For all they know, you planned it this way. And that is what a teacher does each and every day!

Here are the top 5 ways to punt if technology is not your best friend.

1 Add lib. Take what you were going to teach with technology and go for it. You still have the use of a whiteboard/chalkboard. I'm sure you have prepared for the lesson. You know the material. Teach the way many of us did before smartboards, and document cameras. You can do it.

2. Involve the students. If you can make your lesson more interactive without the dis-functioning technology, get your students up and part of the lesson. Remember what you were teaching and have students volunteer to help you write notes, teach the class new vocabulary, or just get them up and moving. If you had discussion involved, do think-pair-shares. Then you know all students are engaged.

3. Extrinsic/Intrinsic Reward Time! Depending on your school's beliefs about rewards, you can announce an un-planned reward for the class. Examples of rewards could be: an extra indoor/outdoor recess, an extra Daily 5 choice, time to do playing card games, or anything else that your class loves to do.

4. Have the students take out crayons/markers/colored pencils and have them take notes or work on what you were going to teach with these fun supplies. They will be shocked for the most part that you are allowing them to write with these for notes, but they will totally think that you had this planned all along. It will also make you feel good to see the students actively participate in this. Everyone loves to color!

5. Do a read aloud. If your lesson isn't working, and you have a class that would jump on any free time by being the crazy class they are, nothing calms them down better then a read aloud. You can cooly say, "I really love our read aloud book, and you all have been sitting so quietly, so let's have an extra one today!" They will love you for it!

Make sure to stop by next Wednesday for another installment of Wise Guys Words of Wisdom!