Technology can be such an interactive tool, instead of passively sitting in the classroom and watching the teacher lecture students can be actively involved in their own education. Mitchel Resnick said in his article, Rethinking Learning in the Digital Age, that “many of our best learning experiences come when we are engaged in designing and creating things, especially things that are meaningful to us or the people around us”. (http://a.nnotate.com/php/pdfnotate.php?d=2010-09-29&c=tjsmWPtC) Technology gives students and teachers the means to actively create. When I was in fourth grade I was in a classroom that had one computer to every two students (way more than any other classroom) and as a result I got to create movies about what I learned, interact with games related to what I was learning. I feel that I remember more from my fourth grade year than many other years and utilizing technology in my future classrooms is something I definitely plan on.On the CARET website (Center for Applied Research in Educational Technology) , research has also shown that “Technology applications that enable student collaboration tend to result in improved achievement”. (http://caret.iste.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=evidence&answerID=2) So not only does it improve achievement but it can lead to better collaboration and teamwork amon the students.
The advantages of technology are many – it enables students to become interactive in their learning, it provides assistance to students who may need it (for example: apps that help students who have trouble speaking), and it is a great motivational tool. Students would be much more likely to work if it meant playing an educational game versus answering drill questions. The disadvantages are that technology can be costly and need to be updated, and it could create an achievement gap between those schools/districts that can afford technology to those that can’t.
A lot of classrooms these days have a handful of computers for their students, if not laptops for all of them. I think the most important piece of technology I would use in my classroom is quite simply, a computer. With computers you can access multitudes of resources including; games, movie making programs, podcasts, websites, etc. I also had the opportunity to work with a SmartBoard this quarter and was astounded by how interactive they are. You can create (or download) games for your students to play, write on them, and use them as a projector. I would definitely use a SmartBoard in my classroom in the future, its like a computer mixed with a whiteboard. There are also several assistive technologies I would use in the classroom, the most important being an iPad. There are several apps on an iPad that could be used as an assistive technology, like Proloquo which enables students who can’t/have difficulty speaking or apps that interpret words for ELLs.
There are so many wonderful uses for technology in the classroom, and as a teacher I am proud to say that I will utilize technology in my own classroom. It's important to note that there are several ineffective uses of technology, and I will be careful to monitor how I am having my students interact with technology so that they are using it to its fullest extent.
There are so many wonderful uses for technology in the classroom, and as a teacher I am proud to say that I will utilize technology in my own classroom. It's important to note that there are several ineffective uses of technology, and I will be careful to monitor how I am having my students interact with technology so that they are using it to its fullest extent.
