My Vision on Technology Integration
Technology is constantly changing and growing. It is
continuously being more widespread across the world, and becoming a necessity to
the lives of all, young and old. Therefore, there is no surprise that
technology is seen in school as well. In order for educators to develop curriculum
that will help the students to be successful in the world today or even just to
keep up with society today, educational technology is a must. This can be hard
at times, technology is constantly changing and therefore more training is
needed, technology can be costly and there can never be a guarantee that any
piece of technology won’t malfunction at some point. However, with technology
constantly becoming more and more popular with society today, we must find a
way as educators to continue to incorporate technology in to the system.
Throughout my junior and senior year in high school, I was
able to do an internship for an hour a day at a local elementary school in my
town. I was placed in a third grade classroom and both observed the class and
helped out. This class had just recently got a smart board installed in their
room, and for those who don’t know a smart board is an interactive white board
that is becoming more popular in classroom's today.
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| A teacher and her students using the interactive white board, also known as a Smartboard. |
I found that these students
worked diligently on their written assignments, and once it was time to use the
smart board, they were more relaxed and enjoyed using this piece of technology.
I believe that because it was used not only for power points but for learning
games, they looked to it more as fun then learning, which basically was making
the students learn in disguise.
I think learning with technology can be used as a disguise
for learning. I think that classroom participation will go up and the student’s
attention spans will be longer. Although, I think it still depends on the type
of teacher teaching the lesson and whether they use the technology completely to
their advantage or not. I came to my solutions by watching a third grade class
react to technology, I haven’t observed a middle or high school classroom.
However after recently graduating high school, I noticed some teachers in my
school used technology to their advantage and were constantly showing us real
world facts, whether it be videos or articles on what they were teaching us,
and their classroom always seemed actively engaged. Then there would be some
teachers who would just use power point after power point to constantly bore
the students.
My opinion on educational technology is that if it’s used
right, can be extremely successful in the classroom. If a teacher integrates
technology in a specific way in the classroom and the students don’t respond
well, switch it up, don’t stick with that specific way all year. I also think
that if teachers use technology in a multiple of ways that it can be useful as
well. For example, do power points one day, show videos the next, and maybe a
learning game the day after, which will keep the students from getting sick of
the same teaching styles a teacher uses. I don’t think educational technology
should be the only way students learn in school however. I think students still
should have to write and do worksheets on paper, and not always type up their
essays.
