Digital Blog Post A, Chapters 1 & 2

As we move into the 21^st century we I am learning to understand new technology and its uses in everyday society. As teachers we not only have to understand it but understand it in a way that we can educate the future students we will have present in our classrooms. After reading chapters one and two, it became clear that technology is very much advanced and will continue to advance every year. In a short time we have gone from land line phones and pagers to 4G cell phones and high definition smart TV’s with Blu-ray players. As with any advancement there are draw backs and when we think about it what are they?

 Thinking of becoming a teacher of tomorrow, I believe we need to understand how technology is useful in the classroom and before it can be introduced, learn and understand such technology so that we can teach our lessons using technology and keep students interested. Students growing up today between the ages of 8 and 18 were born and are being raised in a major technological time in our lifetime. As educators we have lived through the changes and are learning the same technology as the students are and feel we need to understand it well enough to use it in our curriculum as we educate the students. While I was growing up we were using chalk boards and erasers during our lessons and now having smart boards to log into the internet to open up an unlimited range of content to teach students with. This makes it a challenge to keep students interested in the content and not what is always being used. At the same time we must educate the students on the technology and the reasoning behind it so students do not skip a vital step in understanding what the technology is being used for.

In a short time it feels like we have made a major leap in technological advancement. From chalk boards to smart boards students are able to use their fingertips rather than a piece of chalk to write answers on a board. Students are growing up using this technology before entering school and I wonder will they still be interested in knowing how we arrived at this point. Many technologies of today were thought of to be science fiction from movies and would take years to create and today we are becoming the movie. I believe it will continue to be a challenge to understand technology and how to adapt it to out teaching curriculum.

When I taught students in the past I taught what I knew and became good at it. I practiced so much that when it was time to pass on the knowledge to others, I jumped at the opportunity to help others know something I enjoyed. When we teach others there are strategies to consider and with combining technology into our class lessons we must use the technology in a way that the students will understand. Rather than throw everything in at once, start with a single advancement as the smart board and let students get used to it. Then throw in another like finding internet pages and activities through the smart board rather than a TV. This way the students can interact. Now the students are up and excited. As our book says each year introduce a couple advancements to keep the students interested and doing so will not overwhelm the student or we the teachers.

Technology has changed in a major way and I believed I knew a lot and every day I am finding out I knew less and less and am trying to raise my awareness to understand more so that I can teach this in the future. The 21^st century holds a lot of new technological advancements to use to teach students with that will keep students interested. We as teachers need to learn and understand them so we can not only teach them to individuals, but to entire classrooms of students.  The way we present the information through technology will not only help us but help the student understand the importance of technology and its usefulness to us in everyday society. 

Sources:

Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.