The Junk EduBlog: Motivating Middle School Students with Technology

I noticed at drop in the folks reading my blog that occured after I included a YouTube video clip. I am not sure if reader dropped my blog from the their reading list because I had included a video clip, or because I have not been finding the time to write. Seems the only time I deleted the YouTube clip, but hope to include student claymation project we are working on in class on my Junk EduBlog. I have to write is on Sunday morning. This morning, my mind really sparked fire when I ran across this product from the creative thinkers at Griffin Technology.

While reading an article found in iLounge The iPod Book 2.2, I followed a link to Griffin Technology's upcoming gadget for iPods: iKaraoke. I was almost read to turn the page before I remembered a resent presentation conducted by Larry Bell, national presenter, educational
consultant and author, and how he used tunes of Calendar Girl, My Girl, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Accentuate the Positive, Oscar Mayer Weiner, The Adams Family, and Are You Sleeping to help students learn twelve words. These twelve words are critical links to students scoring better on standardized testing. They include analyze, infer, evaluate, formulate, describe, support, explain, compare, contrast, summarize and predict. I can just see a classroom full of elementary or middle school kids being throughly entertained with a teacher using their iPod and iKaraoke. Man, would that be fun. I know, you do not have to go out and buy any of this to accomplish this instructional strategy. Heck, a hair brush and anyone that can carry a tune can lead students in a chorus of The Adams Family-- if the kids know the song. But, most of our students do not know that tune. My middle school kids do not know any of the tunes Bell mentioned. In the Flat World, the author lists adaptivity as a skill that successful folks must possess in a this day and time. Well, using this iKaraoke to teach kids to know 12 words to help them score better on standardized tests has to be adaptive thinking. Maybe I am just crazy as heck. Hey, we have to use whatever it takes to motivate and engage learners.