One winter morning, Spark Matsunaga Elementary School teacher Greta Fitch asks her fourth-graders to consider the world outside their door — specifically, the businesses that line their suburban streets. What sorts of stores and services and restaurants are there? Is anything missing?
On each desk is a Chromebook, a lightweight laptop that students use to search Germantown, Md., using Google Maps as if they were driving the streets. Fitch says that in coming days she will ask the students to put themselves in the shoes of the diverse town’s residents. What businesses might they want? she asks. What do they not see?
Matthew O’Brien shoots up his hand. The energetic 10-year-old says he’s been looking for sporting goods stores and has come up empty for a certain retailer. He points out that the popular Maryland SoccerPlex is in Germantown, and he has spotted a vacant property beside it where a sports store could be built.
“You’ve even found a location?” Fitch asks.
“People who go to the SoccerPlex would go,” he says.
Fitch smiles. She’s not new to teaching or technology. But she finds that some of its best uses involve student discovery. She tries to be open to the unexpected. Matthew made connections more quickly than she imagined — a sign, she believes, that the lesson is more engaging, more meaningful, than the way she taught it before.
Just two years ago, the class would have visited the school’s computer lab once, but most of the multi-week project on economics would have involved handouts, discussion and a printed list of businesses.