Technology+Integration

=__**Technology Integration **__=

While the other videos that were viewed on Monday made me quite angry (and fearful of the future of schools) with all the new technology, “An Introduction to Technology Integration” put a brighter spin on technology being in the school system and was extremely interesting. It was eye-opening to see how much more scientific everything is getting—learning games are now even like game shows! I could not believe that technology was used in so many forms either—even the cheer leading team used it as to become better and more precise! Never in my life would I have thought that technology would be in every aspect of a school. They even use the cheerleaders data for an algebra class to look over so that the students “have something meaningful for their work” as said by Charlotte Arledge, Teacher. It opened my eyes to the positive possibilities of using technology as an aid in the process of educating students instead of a kind of “replacement of the teacher”. Technology being brought into schools is quite important due to the fact that it enhances the curriculum that the students are learning as well as keeps them fully engaged. It also lets students use what already interests them in many different types of classes such as the kids using videos of the sports they do recreation-ally in their science class as a real-life velocity problem. Normally, one would just be given a problem on paper that has nothing to do with their life but due to technology, each subject can now become extremely personal. As a result, students will stay more focused on the task at hand because there will be no more asking “When will I use this in real life?” for the real life is brought to them! Some of the ideas I had for bringing technology into the classroom were: -movies of the books that we are reading -have students make a movie of the book as seen through their eyes as to interpret how the literature is impacting them -have them do research on a literary topic and compare it to how it would differ today with the technology we have -e-books (but that would depend on the school budget) -discussion boards on-line so that students can always have some place to share their thoughts and feelings about a book -blogs, vlogs, etc. instead of journals -having lecture notes on-line so that there is more time for discussions in the classroom—reading those and being up to speed on the other information would be like homework