A great idea just popped into your head about how to use media in the classroom.  Quick!  Write it here before your thoughts get consumed by making photocopies or filling in bubble sheets.

- Speaking the language:  Sign up for AIM and set up office hours with your students over AIM (or skype/yahoo messenger/etc., whatever your kids use) so that they can connect with you about homework, papers or other issues from class in the way they already communicate.  Speaking their language or communicating with them like this is a great way to use media to deepen your connection with students, also to improve homework return rates!

-Music/video as a do-now activity: Have students listen to and respond to a song, skit, poem, video clip, as a media-based introduction to a lesson, in order to build your conversation on a particular theme/idea.  

-Make a teacher myspace/facebook: Of course, pay attention to your district's policies on this one (many districts have firewall blocks on these sites and don't encourage social networking sites in school).  Creating a space online where students can ask you questions, where you can post blogs for them to respond to, post a song to have them listen/video to have them watch.  This has so many possibilities for a media teaching tool, and many high school students are familiar with the platform anyway.

-Use AIM/Text Language as a vocabulary lesson: Trying to learn the lingo of your students, but don't understand the LOLs and ROTFLs?  Have them teach you!  Have them write vocabulary lists of this mysterious new language and quiz each other, or quiz you!

-No classroom computers?: Be sure to check out your school's computer lab, if there is a mobile computer lab available, and have your students sign up for library cards, as most public libraries have computers available for free internet access.

-Blog the livelong day: Blogging (or, online journaling) is a great way to get kids writing, and to encourage peer response.  You can set up free blogs for your students at www.blogger.com, or create a class blog that students can post writing on/respond to each other's work.

- Skype videoconferencing or teleconferencing! All it takes is a free connection through skype, your computer, and a set of speakers (video camera if your computer is equipped as such) to do tele- and video-conferencing.  Have a pen pal classroom in Pontiac, or a newspaper editors meeting with students in Detroit.

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