Thoughtful+Analysis

When I was a student in elementary school teachnology was not an integral part of my education, let alone the word itself. At the time the only form of technology that I ever experienced was occasionally using a computer in computer class or through my teacher's use of an overhead projecter. Through my time in elementary school as I became older, my exposure to computers became more and more through research and activities for class. However I wish that my teachers had access to the types of technology that are available today to our students because teachnology is such a big part of our world today, I feel that I would have been better prepared once I reached the college level.

Through the course of Media and Technology I feel that I have had the chance to experience so many wonderful types of technology that will help me better educate my students in the future. Although it has been wonderful learning about all the different technological tools at my disposal, it has not always been easy working with them. For instance, while working with the podcast, I had a hard time editing the background noise and adjusting the sounds of our voices with the additional sounds. It was definately always simple, especially when we had to upload our podcast and convert it to an MP3, however through the hard work and frustration I learned something new that hopefully one day I can use in my classroom. While, I may have had a hard time with the podcast, not everything completed in class was as mind boggling. I definately feel that I excelled at completing the blog, as well as the poll and survey because I was able to complete the task on hand while having fun. I loved the idea of creating an interactive class blog because it allowed the students access to a new piece of technology that they might not have been aware of beforehand. Not only could the blog be intruiging to future students, but I feel that it is a lot more fun to answer questions and submit work online rather than writing out answers and handing them in the next morning. I think the students would also enjoy the feature of commenting on each others responses which would encourage them to think deeply about their answers and back up their responses. I also enjoyed creating the polls because not only could I include them in my blog for the class to see, but I could make it more fun by having the students text their responses. I really think that this would make learning a lot more enjoyable for the students as texting is something that most people do on a daily basis.

Once I have my own classroom, I would love to integrate technology into my student's lives as much as possible and I feel that technology will become the center of most of their work. Therefore it is imperetive for teachers to have a background in technology and be aware of the resources available to them so their students can benefit from them. I would love to use the CPS system in my classroom because it would enable me to view the student's participation and hopefully encourage the students to pay closer attention so they could use their clicker too! I would also love to have as many computers in my room as possible so the students can all work on them at the same time without having to leave the room or wait for their turn. I feel that in the future a lot of work will be completed on the computer and the students will be able to subit their work online as well. When the school day is over and the students go home to study or complete their homework, I would like to have a designated timeframe everyday for the students and I to communicate via an instant messaging system so I can answer any questions that they may have. The students will not only be able to access me through instant messaging but through email as well. Overall I would like to make myself avaiable to my students as much as they need me and make them as comfortable with technology as possible because it is already a huge part of our lives and I know it will be an even bigger part of our student's lives.

[|Here] is an article that discuss when the best time to use technology in a classroom is and how to effectively implement it.

[|Here] is another article that chronicles the advantages and disadvantages of implementing technology in the classroom and the best way to use it in the classroom.