LIBRIVOX et al IN THE CLASSROOM

How might a teacher use LibriVox, Gutenberg Project, Audacity, WavePad, a teacher blog, and the internet as an integral, not an add on, element of the curriculum? How might each field of study be enhanced, enlivened, and enjoyed. In Ten Best Teaching Practices, Donna Tileston stresses the emotional component of learning. When students learn in a positive, supportive learning environment long-term memory and recall are improved. The end result is knowledge for a lifetime, not for a test or project. Technology is second nature to many students, watch them in the computer lab. What would happen if we harnessed this technological hunger and delight? How might your students and mine approach learning. After all, if you are reading this blog, you are a technophile. If students love what they are learning, or at least love the way they are learning, might we see engaged, interested, and willing learners?

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Flowers at EIU

Carl Sandburg

CHICAGO

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,

Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse. and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of youth, half-naked, sweating,
Proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

– Carl Sandburg, 1916