Technology and Education

We live in very interesting times where we have access to some very impressive technological tools, and in approaching the field of education as a teacher it’s important, certainly, to decide where technology will fit into the classroom. My personal philosophy regarding technology is twofold. First of all, I absolutely do not want to see technology ever become the centerpiece of my curriculum or of the classroom environment. I like the idea of using technology as a tool to support the content, but only provided that it can be done in a way that isn’t distracting from the subject-area content, or alienating to students to whom technology is not their forte. Speaking of which, the second and most important part of my philosophy centers on listening to the student. Each student is going to have individual needs and wants regarding technology, and it’s important to teach to those needs as best as we can. Sure, we can study statistics that allow us to generally predict what to expect from certain demographics and so on, and we can talk about the digital divide and how these kids over here aren’t getting their fair share compared to those kids over there, but I think what is most important at the classroom level is just to listen to kids on an individual basis and try to help them out on that level with the tools that are available in that school.
One example of how I would like to apply my philosophy regarding technology in the classroom is to include technology in a KWL-type assessment I could use as one of my earliest activities toward the beginning of the year. I’d also like to use such an assessment to find out where the kids are regarding my subject area of language arts, but since technology will likely be incorporated in the form of blogs and such, I’d create a few prompts in the assessment to find where they are regarding their use of technology. That way I can know where the needs are when we do start using technology, which will most likely be right away. I especially like the idea of using google documents for assignments that are accessible to everyone, so I’d want to find out where I need to scaffold and assist and what I need to pay attention to in each individual kid. Again, for me, it all comes down to really listening to my students and letting them help me give them what they need by just listening.