Philosophy of Technology in Education

If I have learned anything from my IT 442 class it is that I still have much to learn about technology in the classroom. I hope to continue exploring technology and how it can be used in the classroom. Students come with an interest in new things but vast experiences that need to be considered.

At the beginning of the class I realized that because of the vast amount of technology used teachers would need to be very careful to pick the technology that would help the student the most. Technology can be used for both gaining information, such as researching on the World Wide Web, and processing and explaining information. Students could do this in a number of ways.

There are a few ideas I gained about specific technologies. There are many technologies that students can use to replace writing a paper. Some of these are talking on a podcast, creating a movie, making a wiki page. The wiki page in particular can be very helpful for students to collaborate and work on as a group project. I enjoy writing but I realize that many students do not. These students may prefer making a movie or a kiosk with power point or a podcast. Another note about podcasts is that they can be used by the teacher to give lectures when he or she is not physically with the child or children. It can be used to send home to a child that was sick and not able to be in class for example. The interactive whiteboard is another technology form that is very useful to teachers. The possibilities of a whiteboard and an enlarged computer screen are combined in this one resource.

There are advantages and disadvantages to most forms of technology. For example the interactive whiteboard has many possibilities but it can be expensive. The World Wide Web has huge benefits to giving students access to information but a certain amount of screening needs to be done to protect students. Blogs and wiki pages can be a resource for students to explain what they are learning but the student’s privacy needs to be carefully protected. Movies and podcasts can be used and can be very motivational for children who may not want to write a paper. However they can become very time consuming at the same time and may take up too much precious learning or classroom time. Technology needs to be used carefully but is a powerful tool. Teachers should support and can use technology to help them teach and to help their students learn. As a teacher I hope to use technology on a regular basis in my classroom.