Technology Upload!

Walking into my Education course on Diversity was like walking into an Economics class. I knew nothing. I interacted on a computer on a daily basis, but I never really thought of implementing them into the classroom. I always felt like the time that education would transition from pen and paper to computer after I was a teacher so I wouldn’t have to adjust my learning styles to accommodate. I was wrong. Technology is today, and I had to realize that my teaching styles and what I was accustomed to was inaccurate and a part of the past.
Children thrive through technology. An educator of the 21st century is taking students love for technology and embracing it inside the classroom. Everyday students are interacting and using technology, it is mind-boggling to believe that we should leave it out of the classroom. Through articles I have read during class I have realized how necessary it actually is to integrate technology into the classroom to keep students involved and interested in the classroom. If our life is changing drastically because of technology, aren’t we crazy to assume that education shouldn’t follow this trend?
One of the videos we watched for EDU 302 was one at the beginning of the year that opened my eyes and gave me the understanding of the necessity of technology in the classroom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEFKfXiCbLw&feature=related The video has a simple text video that really opened my eyes to how much kids actually use technology. Students an amazing way of learning technology on their own, why not put it into the classroom. This video really intrigued me to learning more about what I could to engage my students in the classroom.
After having the desire to teach I then started to think of ways to add technology into my classroom in the future. One amazing opportunity the class was given was to visit the ACTEM conference in Augusta where there were various lectures on integrating technology into the classroom. The class began my interest on having technology in the classroom and this conference actually gave me new and fascinating ideas of how.
http://www.actem.org/Pages/ACTEM_Conference/index
After learning about how necessary to integrate technology and then finding ways how I thought that was the basis of my use of the class. I thought I would bring this information further and when I got a classroom I would integrate it, little did I know this information was already being put to use.
I was given the opportunity to teach my Kindergarten classroom how to use computers for the first time. They each had a lap top and I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted with them. I had them to begin to explore Pixie and other programs. At the age of 5 when these students didn’t even know all 26 letters, they signed in and navigated through the desktop to fix pixie. If that isn’t an example enough of students thriving on technology then I don’t know what is!
It was fascinating to have this class go a full circle. I started off with the assumption that students didn’t really need technology in the classroom or that it was an unachievable goal due to funds in the school system. Then my knowledge of technology because more realistic and how I can actually do it in the future. And t bring this class full circle I actually saw how students at the young age of 5 actually loved to go on computers and are still to this day asking if they can use them at least once a day for free choice. Isn’t it our jobs as educators to provide students will the most effective way in learning? If students are advancing with technology everyday, shouldn’t education also?