Teaching online notes for learning: Week 20

Technology in Education

Technology? No technology? somewhere in between?

In my experience, technology beyond the photo slides, type writers and movies, started when I was in my last year of High school. Everything was written by hand, we had type writers only in typing class (which I never took) and the information came from teachers and books. The one exception was my last two years in high school, I was at a school that had a dome to show stars on and Apple II's to learn how to program in basic ( I did take this class).

My first experience with technology and education was in nursery school where the teacher had a movie in French used for teaching us a second language. Movies were used a lot throughout my school years. Once I went as a visitor to a Caribbean island elementary school, and they showed us a movie. I was aware that the people had very little and yet there we were separated girls on one side and boys on the other all watching a movie. In contrast I went to my friends birthday party where we all hung out crossed legged on the floor, cookies and cakes on the table, and the parents showed us a movie. Sometimes it just gave me headaches and made me tired and sometimes it was very exciting, such as when I watched a physics movie showing a bridge oscillating itself to pieces because of the wind frequency being just right to vibrate the bridge into a perfect wave.

I am completely supportive of technology in the classroom. Sometimes I think why? a classroom with paper and pencils, some colors maybe a couple of magazines, that are about the topic at hand, and a few good books is all we need. From there the teacher and the students can create whatever they want. Yet, I have that in my classroom space, and many times I reach out to technology. Today my slide projector is on my computer (or phone for that matter) my film projector too and my record player that became a CD player is now also a downloaded digital piece I can play with a click. Therefore I consider my computer or my phone my tool box. What I do with the tool box completely changes depending on who I am teaching.

I remember one day (Jr high age) going to sleep and thinking what would happen if all the people who know how to build roads suddenly were gone, how would we, who were left behind, know how to do it (I am not sure why road and not something else)? I knew it was probably written down somewhere, but my Jr high library the size of a small kitchen, did not seem to have that information in it, and that bothered me. So when the world wide web came into existence on my computer, that I used for writing and creating art with, suddenly was a gold mine of information, and that is why I believe it is more than very important to bring it into the classroom.

Students of all ages learn to use computers and other devices that can almost do the same thing, not only to watch the latest TV show for free or chat on facebook (which isn't bad when you have friends too far to visit on a regular basis), but also to learn how to learn from the virtual world and apply it or not into the real world. My job is to teach others, and hope that I can also teach how to teach others what they know and continue sharing information. Then people can take or leave what they need. Yes some will get trapped in the media frenzy and others will claim war on the same media frenzy, but at the end somewhere in the middle is the best place for technology.

My tool box favorites: