A typical day in Graham Long’s AP Economics class begins with the wheeling in of the ELMO. Not to be confused with the Sesame Street character, the ELMO is a new piece of technology that is replacing the overhead projector in classrooms across the country. At Catonsville High School, the ELMO is just one of the many new technologies that are being integrated into lesson plans.

“The dark ages of learning from the blackboard are over,” commented junior Michael Wilcox.

While some teachers are stuck in their ways, one teacher is ahead of the curve. Mr. Long is in his second year teaching at Catonsville High School and is using technology to his advantage.

Mr. Long uses this new technology, the ELMO, which enables a teacher to save time by not making overhead transparencies and allows teachers to write right on papers while the whole class watches.

The ELMO also enables Mr. Long to make use of a remarkable piece of modern technology which will revolutionize teaching in the future. Livescribe pens record the pen’s strokes as well as recording the sound that transpires while writing. This enables a student who misses a lecture to essentially be in the class via the internet. The pen also allows Mr. Long to really teach instead of just assigning reading if school was shut down for snow or other reasons.

Senior Economist Dan Hom and other Economics students love the pencasts. Hom commented, “The lesson plans come to life and are much easier to understand.”

Not only does Mr. Long use technology in the classroom but he utilizes technology for interaction outside of the classroom as well. Mr. Long maintains a class website for his AP Economics class, which he updates on a daily basis, but he also is the administrator of the class blog.

“The class blog gives students an opportunity to apply economics to a real world situation,” commented Mr. Long.

One of the main reasons for Mr. Long’s blog and website is to allow A-day and B-day students to interact and keep up with their class work. Mr. Long spent the whole summer working on his website and says it is a work in progress.

Students love this new surge in technology at Catonsville High School.
Hom loves the new technology. “It is really an exciting time to be a student at Catonsville High School with all these new technologies,” he commented.

Technology definitely has its place in the classroom, for especially for Mr. Long “I think [technology] plays a big role. It is important to use technology in the right way. It is not a substitute for practice. Teachers should not use [technology] as a crutch.”

In this modern age, technology and teaching are beginning to go hand and hand and these new educational tools are improving the quality of learning everywhere.