The article I read by Jong H. Chung, Integrating Technology into the Classroom, discussed the advances of technology through six different points. These points are as follows:
- historical background
- motivation
- examples of classroom technology
- concerns about using technology in classroom
- discussion of the author's recommendations for using technology
Historical Background
The historical background that he discussed gave examples of previous forms of technology used in education. First, there were visual aids which included films, pictures, and lantern slides. Next, there were motion picture projectors, sound motion pictures, radio, and television. Then, there were VCRs, computers, and the internet were all introduced. When the radio was first created, many audiovisual enthusiasts thought the radio was going to revolutionalize education. In today’s society, internet and personal computer usage has become common in classrooms because of the convenient speed of it.
Motivation
The motivation behind integrating technology into your daily routine stems from three parts: nonprofit organizations, commerce, and education. Nonprofit and governmental organizations have been actively proposing guidelines for using technology in the classroom. For example, the ISTE provides guidelines to promote technology use within the classroom. In commerce, companies have begun training their employees on computers in order to expand their knowledge. In education, most educators agree that we should adopt technology extensively into the classroom environment; however, the ways in which we should use technology varies significantly. The constructivist approach is applying technology in order to enhance the new learning paradigm. The new paradigm is envisioned by ISTE and promotes learning that asserts that knowledge is not passively received but is actively created inside the mind of every learner.
Classroom Technology Examples
Examples of using technology within the classrooms vary by educator. Interactive whiteboards are one of the more recent devices that teachers are using to engage their students in the lesson. Students can touch or draw on these boards that have access to the internet. The interactive whiteboards can serve many different purposes in engaging students. Another way educators can use the interactive whiteboards is through the student response system. Many classrooms use clickers to take quizzes or follow along with the lessons by asking a question where your students respond often. This strategy keeps students engaged and actively using their brains. Classroom management software is where you are able to project a student’s desktop onto the wall where the rest of the class is able to see and develop a better understanding. Classroom blogs are where students post blog posts on the classroom blog site on the internet. Educators can grade these blog posts as daily or weekly grades. This technique is beneficial because it exposes students to typing while practicing their writing skills.
Although there are benefits to using technology in the classroom, there are also concerns. Teachers who are unwilling to use technology in their classroom is a main concern. This prevents their students from expanding their technology skills. Because of this, these unwilling teachers could hinder their students and the students could potentially not be as engaged during class. Another concern is technology dependency which is where teachers would solely use technology and neglect other aspects of the classroom such as interpersonal relationships between students in group activity time. In addition to this, there are many teachers and students who have not been properly educated on copyright violations. Because of this, it is risky for them to be using technology since there are copyright laws in place.
Discussion
The author had several recommendations listed for the proper usage of technology within the classrooms. However, I have chosen three that I feel are most important to this topic. They are as follows:
- Try one technology concept at a time; master one technology concept before you try another one.
- Use technology to help students to visualize, simulate, solve real world problems, collaborate, research, and design whenever possible.
- Identify fundamental technology skills at all levels of education and make them part of the curriculum or develop courses that teach them.
I think that all three of these points are very important. I think as an educator, you have to learn how to use technology one program at a time in order to gain full knowledge about the subject. I think technology helps students learn because it offers more ways to learn that paper offers. In addition to this, I also think it is important for students to learn how to use technology on a basic level as they continue to grow.
