If you’re old enough, then USB memory sticks are going to seem halfway miraculous. A single USB memory, weighing less than an ounce, can store more than information than you could on an entire computer just ten years ago. In fact, you could store more information on a high end stick than you could on ten computers from the turn of the century. This is a huge improvement, and it has big potential for use in the classroom. A lot of teaching, probably the majority of teaching, isn’t just about pouring knowledge into student’s heads. Students need to know certain things, for certain, and you definitely need to make sure that they have the right amount of information to make the connections that they need.

What they really need is to learn how to think about problems in the right way. They need to be able to take the information that they have and look at in ways that will lead them to be able to use the information that have. They need to be able to analyze what they’re learning so that they can judge what parts of it are useful. But the key to this is having the right information to begin with, which is where a USB memory stick can come in handy. One of these handy little devices can store the equivalent of hundreds or even thousands of books, all in a form that can be easily searched and is easily portable. This is not an insignificant advantage. You can have what is ffectively a library’s worth of information condensed into a form that could easily be put on a keychain. This allows you to give students access to a tremendous amount of information. Essentially, you are no longer limited to just what can be contained in a text book or two. You can go ahead and give your students access to all the information that you know, all the books that are referenced in the underfloor heating bibliography. This can give tremendous depth for the students, and actually make the business of teaching them easier.

You don’t have to rely on your students to get their information either. A USB memory stick is cheap, and you can get them packaged with the information that you need on them so that you can easily distribute them to your class. This is a step up from just having papers available for reference or trying to have stuff on your website or emailing it to your students. You can give them far more information than most of them would be able to download on their tshirt printing computers. What this means is that you can give them information for them to compare and contrast, not just the information they need to commit to memory. You can let them look at the various works that went into creating the current thinking. This will allow them to have a more complete, more immersive experience. A USB memory stick isn’t just an easy way to store information; it’s a way to make the classroom experience better for all students.