May's Top Techie Teachers -- Bobby Hurt and Dianne Turner

Congratulations to Mr. Bobby Hurt and Ms. Dianne Turner

May's Top Techie Teachers

You may be wondering why there are two Top Techie Teachers this month.  Mr. Hurt and Ms. Turner are collaborative teachers at Bluestone High School.  They work together to teach English to their students through the use of many high tech tools.  One of their favorites is the Smartboard. They use it daily to engage students during warm up activities.  A student becomes the teacher as he or she stands in front of the board encouraging other classmates to decide on the correct way to edit sentences.  With this approach to their lesson introduction, all students become active participants in the class lesson during the first few minutes of the period.  Racheal Robinson, a student, said, "Everyone gets a chance to go up there and make the corrections.  Plus, I can see the work on there better than I can with a projector."  Another tool they use regularly is the document camera.  Through the use of this device, anonymous rough drafts can be displayed and edited during group discussions on proper formatting and grammatical rules.  Although this makes the writer more aware of what he or she is writing, Mrs. Turner pointed out that even with undisclosed names, some students do not like to see their work on display.  A student in 1^st block, Whitney Allgood said, "The document camera helped me write my last paper.  My editing skills are much better."  Many other forms of technology are used as well, including web sites that reinforce vocabulary, Internet safety discussions and research projects.  Mr. Hurt and Ms. Turner said collaboration is the perfect setting for technology because there is always someone that can walk around the room and answer questions while the other teacher is presenting the lesson.  They feel technology has helped them set the mood for more cooperation and involvement from the students while also getting students to focus on the lesson.  Using webcasts, Mr. Hurt has found that the students can turn a 30 minute lesson into a full hour because of intelligent, thoughtful discussions about the information given.  Joseph Jarman agrees that webcasts are more effective than lectures because students can see the examples.  Students really respond to using technology for everyday instruction.  Student Bre-Anna Tucker said it best when she stated, "Every piece of technology we use in this class is used for our benefit!"  If you would like more information on how to incorporate technology into your collab class, please contact Mr. Hurt or Ms. Turner at Bluestone High School.  They are doing an exemplary job collaborating with technology!