For her, the means of the presentation is the whole shebang. For me, I can teach just as well with an overhead or some colorful chalk and my board.

And wouldn’t you know it, I get more student buy-in this way. When I don’t readily have a visual but ask my students to go up to the board and work it out, they no longer sit like passive lumps.

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All that said, I think that even with focus on design –
(by the way, all my worksheets and lab procedures use the same design now and the students are much better at putting their names on their papers)
– I still think that good design does is a poor sub for lack of content. And I believe that students are incredibly tolerant of design, when the content is engaging.

What I appreciate about the four parties loosely sucked into this thing (me, the two of you, and Scott) is that each seems to take the burden fully upon his- or herself to not bore kids. Which is great.

Also don’t want to mischaracterize myself here, either– I’m still learning a lot of the techs I listed. This is one of the reasons tech currently makes very limited appearances in my classroom, but there are others. Extremely circumscribed support is one reason, as Jeff notes. A fervent desire to think about my computer, and how it affects my and my kids’ very WAY OF BEING, is another. I’ve blogged pretty extensively on this recently.

I also think that there’s something to be said for subject-specific applications of technology. Let’s take “the juicy detail” of good writing, which often comes out of strong sensory awareness. Witness Dan’s last post on the blogger anecdote.

Do I therefore want to take the majority of my instructional time to work on Voicethread (and in the process extend the time their senses are stripped down to two out of five), or take kids outside and brainstorm adjectives that describe how the trees sound when snow falls off their branches? Which will result in the best learning outcomes for this group of kids– in ENGLISH class? Where are their foundations best laid? Where is the balance?