Training Teachers for the Computer Classroom

Question 1: What do you find unattractive about teaching in a computer supported classroom? Sue: Students have a tendency to come in and print their papers right at the beginning of class instead of coming into class with a hard copy... Beth: If you have a technological difficulty, your whole lesson plan could be shot for the day. If the computers go down and you were planning on writing for a half-hour, what are you going to do? You can always write with pencil and paper, but if you were going to e-mail stuff to each other, it just doesn't always work out that way. Question 2: How about disadvantages that you see for the computer classroom? Both for you and for your students? Sue: Sometimes it's hard to get their attention when they're on the computers. It's almost impossible to get them to stop writing on their DAILIES. They would write the whole hour if I let them, I think. Also, there are times that we send them out to work, and they're not really interacting with each other. Students are at their own screens, they're in their own little world, and they're not talking to their classmates. Sometimes I think that my class doesn't even know half the names of all the people in the class.