Technology in the Sociology Classroom

Sociology was one of the classes I took the first semester I returned to college after a 10 year hiatus. My sociology professor at CCBC-Essex was very big on integrating technology into the classroom. She also taught online, so she integrated WebCt/Blackboard into all of her face to face classes as well. She did not "lecture" very often. She preferred to set up panel discussions and let us choose sides to debate a current sociological issue. While I had trouble finding my voice in class at first to express my opinions, I had no trouble doing so in the required WebCt discussions.
We were assigned alot of group work in this class. After the Professor presented the first 5 chapters in the textbook, student groups had to work together to present the following 10 chapters in groups of 5. We had to make it interesting and engage our classmates. My group incorporated video clips from the "Godfather" and "Varsity Blues" to demonstrate ascribed status roles.
For our final project, the groups had to present a social issue. My group tackled Arranged Marriages in India. With the help of You-Tube, instead of blandly listing the facets of the wedding ceremony itself, we showed a video clip featuring dancing, music, and cultural traditions. We recorded an interview and showed it to the class. We presented the facts and figures through powerpoint instead of monotonously speaking. Using technology actually made it easier to work as a group, since we kept in touch through Blackboard, posting our information gathered.
While this was really my first experience creating PowerPoint presentations, I quickly learned how engaging they can be versus writing on a chalkboard.