technology in the classroom

Here is an example of why we need technology in the classroom: because we are not always the experts, but someone in the world is.

My students are participating in the national Poetry Out Loud competition by reciting poems in front of their English class next week. One reminder that I give my students is that they should pronounce the words in their poem correctly, especially the poet's name. One student stayed after class today to get help on the pronunciation of her poet's name. Since this was a poet that I had never read before, Carol Muske-Dukes, I googled her name and found her webpage then went there to look for help with pronunciation. On her webpage I saw a link to an interview that she did on NPR. We listened to the interviewer welcome her and learned how to pronounce her name correctly: [mus-key]

Why wonder when you can find the answer in under two minutes?