Larry Wiener

About Me

Name: Larry Wiener

Site: District Office

Grade(s): K-12th

Technology I Recommend

Youtube, c-span.org, procon.org, tablets, smartphones, Google Docs

Technology ability: Proficient

A little about me:

I am a home hospital teacher. I teach students who are unable to go to school for a variety of reasons.

I was slow to enter the world of technology in the 80's when computers first came into the classroom, but now I don't know how I could do this job effectively without technology.

Lesson

Technology in Home Teaching

Technology used: Tablets, You Tube, Google Docs, others

Subject: A variety of K-12 curriculum

Common Core Standard(s):

Multiple

I am not writing about a specific lesson, but about integrating available technology into everything I do.

I teach students at home who are unable to go to school. I do not have the resources of a school library or reference books, yet I want to present a very enriched and interesting program to students. I want to go beyond the textbook. Technology makes this possible.

Fortunately, most of my students have wi-fi and I carry a tablet with me every day. Sometimes planned and sometimes spontaneously I will get out my tablet and go online to find material that would supplement or even create a lesson. Here are a few examples:

I was working with a tenth grader whose world history included studying the beginnings of socialism. The day before Bernie Sanders had given a speech on democratic socialism and I played the speech for her.

When I was doing Julius Caesar with that same student I played Charlton Heston reading Mark Antony's funeral speech. He read it beautifully and it elicited a comment of "he sounds like Donald Trump" from the student. Hearing an expert reading made the speech much more interesting.

I have found vocabulary and multiplication games to help a third grader practice needed skills with his parents even though his family did not speak English well.

When I was working with a kindergartener and the practice book called for response to a story that I did not have in book form. I found that YouTube had these stories read and illustrated.

I use Google Docs to work on collaborative editing with students and use the comments feature of that resources to help students focus on how they can improve their compositions.

These are but a few examples of how I compensate for not having all the resources of the school when I work in the field.

Technology Insight & Tips

Think tech resources in everything you teach.