As technology advances, it is difficult to keep up to the advancements in both our personal and professional lives. Teachers have an especially important role to play in technological advancements, as incorporating technology in the classroom can be both a learning tool for students and a teaching tool for the teacher. Kids seem to be adapting to the advancements in technology better than many adults, and they actually embrace it. For this reason, incorporating technology in the classroom is a great way to increase a child’s interest in learning.
My experience of the Technology course have been an amazing one, I’ve learned so much. There were so many useful applications that I was introduced to and am extremely appreciative to Michelle because she actually made my life easier. I love Google Docs and will introduce this application to students as a word processing, PowerPoint or spreadsheet option regardless of the class I happen to teach. Social bookmaking is another great educational and personal tool. Social bookmarking can help students to find ways to search for information other than through Google. Students who use social bookmarking will also be less likely to lose links that they have found important. If social bookmarking is used in the classroom, students and teachers can move from one computer to another and still have full access to their bookmarks. Students and teachers would less likely forget the location of the sites they have used. Students will be able to share their bookmarks with their classmates. Both students and teachers can also share collections of bookmarks they have found to be worthwhile. Social bookmarking can also help students to quickly find links to important current events and historical events or as a matter of fact any topic of interest. I love my Diigo Page and use it both personally and academically ever since it was introduced to me. The Video project was yet another great experience for me in my technology class. I now edit all of my home videos which look professional.
The Interactive Smartboard is a one of the best technological advances that I’ve seen in a while and I do embrace the idea of having one in my classroom someday. It brings the information alive to the students, each lesson can become an interactive one and it can help students to be very motivated to learn. The smartboard is very useful to demonstrate and teach any subject. Although I was faced with a few challenges while creating my own Smartboard lesson; I was at ease because I now know that there are thousands of lesson plans online that can be downloaded if problems arise. Which brings me to another point of having technology in the classroom, there are so many free resources that teachers can use, whether it be lesson plans that they need, videos, maps, puzzles or educational games, the list goes on and on. There is a plethora of free information available in the palm of our hands that are readily available.
Incorporating that technology in the classroom and daily lesson plans can be a challenge for many teachers, as they must choose the most efficient way of delivering a lesson and the assignments that reinforce it while staying on target. However, I think that once teachers incorporate technology in the classroom, it would benefit their students by engaging them in ways the students are familiar and actually enjoy, which will as a result make teachers jobs easier.
