Hello, My name is Sandra and I am afraid of technology! OK maybe not afraid, but I do get nervous sometimes at the idea that teaching is changing. As teachers we are now being told that it is mandatory to incorporate technology into our daily lessons. I can understand why it is important to use technology. I can understand why it is important to encourage students to use it. However, what I don't understand is why it has taken so long for there to be acknowledgment that teachers need help learning all of these new things that are being demanded of them. Remember, now part of the teacher evaluation process includes the use of technology in the classroom.
As an undergrad I was only exposed to one class on technology class, ONE! I even remember in that class that we talked about how to make spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, and this was in 2009. I have heard many times from many different teachers that they only use about half of what they learn in undergrad in an actual classroom situation. Now I am only speaking from personal experience, but I would have to agree with that statement. I am actually currently excited that during this course I am learning how to use the technology of today and even possibly tomorrow.
Some of the new things that I have actually started to enjoy include blogging. I never thought that in a million years I would want to post messages of my thought to the Internet. As this is now my second blog, I am feeling excited that my peers will be able to read what I am thinking and may even be able to offer advice or words of encouragement. Blogging in this manner, could be extremely beneficial to my students. I can imagine them blogging about study questions, what they learned in class, and helping students that were absent catch up. This may also offer an outlet for students to talk directly to the teacher about issues that they see going on in class, but there are not necessarily enough time during class to address. This can show the students that the teacher cares and is not dismissing there thoughts.
There are still new things that I am learning everyday as I take this journey through Technology Land. As I continue to learn, I look forward to figuring out how I can use these new tools in my classroom.
WEB FIND: I found this site that I wanted to share, http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/. This site offers free online workshops for teacher. There goal is to help teachers gain more knowledge about how to use technology as well as what technology standards they are going to be held to.
Thanks for Reading
Sandra
I think that it is great that you are diving into technology but more importantly that you are thinking of how a lack of preparation from school officials, has caused you, what I consider, unnecessary stress. It is funny that as technology advances at the break-neck speed it has, administrators and government bureaucrats believe we should all be experts at every little new technology that comes out. I look forward to the day when technology is packaged for school use, like textbook curriculum, so all teachers can be trained on how to use the technology and when new features are added we all get trained on that new technology. That is my dream, no fuss,no muss educational technology.
ReplyDeleteSandra,
ReplyDeleteI was also feeling afraid about technology and I am slowing warming up to all that I am learning here. Do I feel confident? Not yet...but I know that will come later for me. I think you will get there too. =) Yesterday, as I was working on my blog, I had this thought, call it a "revelation", about technology in the classroom and my perception of it. We've always thought about *how* to integrate technology into our lessons, but how do you integrate something that is as substantial or natural for our students? I feel it would be like saying in the past, "How do we integrate pencils or books or paper?" Technology is here and it's actually more natural and relevant to many students. It is a significant avenue for sharing and creating information...it should be a natural part of our class day.
You brought up a good point about teachers needing training. Yes, we do! I would feel more confident and thus more likely to use certain technologies in the classroom if it was supported and encouraged at school. Thanks for sharing your link. I'll definitely bookmark it for the FREE, self-paced workshops. Enjoyed reading your thoughts.
~Bren
Hi Sandra,
ReplyDeleteIntegrating technology can be a lot of work. Proper training is not always something school districts offer. And often, if they do, it may not be up to date, considering technology is continually changing also. I think these facts help support the idea that a Personal Learning Network (PLN) is a critical component for today's teachers to investigate and develop. This past week, I spent a lot of time learning about PLN and realized my network for the past number of years has been quite basic, limited to co-workers at my school and a few others. An efficient use of our time is to include teachers that are ahead of us on this learning curve and reply on them as resources to help us grow more comfortable with our own learning and integration of technology. If you haven't already expanded your Twitter account to follow some educators across the world, I suggest you try that out!
Kim
I have wondered the same thing: why has it taken so long for there to be technology resources within schools? I know several teachers whom are afraid of technology, as you said. Teachers who have been teacher for 20 or 30 years have their set ways and a lot of them are very nervous about using technology. I think it would be great to have some technology workshops that are required for teachers to attend so that they can have hands-on practice with technology that they can use in their classroom. That would be a great way to get more teachers involved with it and not be so scared.
ReplyDeleteI also wrote about blogging this week in my post. I have never had a blog before, but am excited about the effects of using one in my classroom! I agree that blogging could be really beneficial to students. With older students, you could require them to have a blog and then connect all of the blogs together so that they could comment on other student's blogs. I also like the idea of having a classroom blog that I write for the parents to stay updated with what is happening in my class.
I am also continuing to learn more and more technology. Thank you for sharing!
Tiffany