I'm not sure if we're supposed to simply copy/paste or somehow summarize what we wrote but since this is really the first assingment I'm just going to go ahead and do it...here goes!

Looking at my past experience with technology in the classroom, I find that I lean heavily towards the side of having technology in the classroom and making sure that it is up to date and that I have the proper training to use it to its fullest extent. Let me explain that sentence to you. I did my student teaching in a mainly blue-collar area north of Detroit where each classroom had a computer and an overhead projector. The school made the decision to purchase five digital projectors which I made use of almost weekly and I’m fairly certain that I was one of the few teachers that used them with any regularity. Upon graduation from my program I took a job teaching at a public charter school in Detroit where my classroom technology consisted of an overhead projector, a cassette tape machine, and a DVD/VCR cart that I shared with three rooms. In order for me to have a computer in my room, I had to bring in my own laptop from home and download any software I wished to use at my own expense.

Was I able to teach effectively to my students? Sure, I feel that I was able to offer appropriate information with the materials that I had on hand, but I think I could have done much more quality teaching, or at least generated more entertaining lessons, if I could have used some of the technology I have at my disposal now. The Lakeview district had teacher stations in every room from middle school up (I’m not sure what they have in the elementary classrooms) with DVD/VCR, ELMO machines, video projectors, voice projectors (no, they’re not called mikes) so that every student can hear what’s being said, as well as software to go with the computer station in the room.

In the article, Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation, the authors bring up the problem of using technology to back up a lesson vs. using it to teach the lesson? I’ve never put much thought into that but I’ve realized that I do a little of both in my class room. I use some of the hardware in my room on a daily basis as do most of the teachers in my building. “I’d be in deep trouble if anything ever happened to my projector.” is a common concern in my building, but I know that most of the people making this claim used chalkboards well before this technology entered their classrooms (luddites anyone?) I now use United streaming, or Discovery Education rather than bother with those old DVD’s or VCR tapes; its like having a video library stored on your computer, just enter your keyword and go.

In addition to using the hardware in my classroom, I’m also in the process of building a useful class website. I found while reading the second article, Beyond technology integration: The case for technology transformation, that I’ve been taking some very basic steps towards creating the classroom where students can learn at their own pace, and that the classroom technology helps guide the students towards attaining their goals. I thought I was just finding something fun and interesting for the students to do when they were finished with their work, but I realized that the material I found, or at least got excited about finding, was material that either taught the students or reinforced material learned in the lessons in the guise of a game. I watched students who were not good at multiplication, and who hated multiplication, focus on learning their multiplication facts so that they could reach the next level in games.

Anther topic that Reigeluth, C.M. & Joseph discussed was using technology to help guide student “attainment based” learning. Our school employs math “coaches” that observe how we teach and offer best practices and one topic that comes up repeatedly is teaching to the GLCE’s vs. teaching to the book. I recall one of our classmates talking about how the classrooms in the district have clickers or remotes in the classroom that teachers can use to perform informal assessment about student understanding of a lesson. This technology would allow my to decide which students had learned which GLCE and how I could decide to move on in my lessons while working privately with certain students to make sure that they weren’t left behind.

While I understand Postman’s discussion on not having technology simply for the sake of having it, I am always excited when I lean a new method to reach students with something that is already in my room and at my disposal. Can I teach without a smart board? Sure, but after listening to my co-worker across the hall talk about how he uses it in his math lessons, do I want one? Yes! Can I use it to help students understand the statistics unit we’re just starting? Definitely.