Reflections...

After looking over my past blog posts, I believe that my thoughts on technology are still very similar to when this course began and I had my first days being on site. I was and continue to be somewhat skeptical of tech usage and believe that while it can definitely be used to increase student engagement and enjoyment of the material, it can also be improperly applied and result in frustration, loss of class time and confusion over what exactly is supposed to be learned. These ideas were expressed fairly early on in the ELR framework and haven’t really changed.

I think a lot of these ideas and feelings are left over from when I was going through High School. My teachers tried to apply tech to nearly every conceivable situation, many of which did not need any tech to be effective, and as a result a lot of their experiments ended in flops and we simply reverted back to a more traditional learning style after 20 or 30 minutes of frustration. I’m happy to report that on the whole, it seems that tech use has become much, much more effective and efficient in all the classrooms I have observed. I have also noticed many more positive examples of tech use than I ever have before. Some examples of great tech integration that I have seen and consider to be changing the classroom in a positive way are: Ipad mirroring using Apple TV, StarBoard usage, Kahoot quizzes, Flocabulary videos, Explain Everything, using Chromebooks to take quizzes or write in class and sites like ThingLink.com, Newsela.com, and Brainpop.com. Some of these tools I have discovered at school sites, and some I have learned about from my classmates at University. There are, of course, many many more examples of ‘good’ tech tools that would qualify through the previously mentioned ELR framework that are not mentioned here.

At my new placement at Santa Ynez High, I have noticed that tech is relatively low level, but very well integrated. For instance, I have not yet seen the use of mirroring or Chromebooks to take tests (both of which were fairly standard at my first placement). Some teachers have SmartBoards, but pretty much just use them like a standard projector. PowerPoint continues to reign supreme as the primary way to deliver information. Some of the more traditional teachers avoid it entirely and deliver their content nearly tech free.

As for me, I am, as previously mentioned, open to, but wary of tech use. I really do believe that there are great uses of tech that can increase student engagement, or reach them in a way that was impossible before (I just listed a bunch!) but I am not rushing to use tech in every lesson. Due to the fear of tech malfunction, student abuse, or set up times that are simply a waste of valuable minutes, I believe the benefit of the tech usage has to be really significant in order to convince me to use it with students. I think the number of tech tools that are meeting these qualifications continues to grow every day tech will soon be an integral part of every classroom, but we still need to be attentive to how we are using tech, and whether or not it is really necessary.