Technology Teaching in the Future

As educational technology continues to change the role of teachers will continue to change as well. Teachers are already starting to teach in online classrooms that did not exist even five or ten years ago. I think the teachers role will change a lot because the communication with the parents as well as the students will change. Many teachers now are beginning to have their own classroom websites and give out their e-mail addresses which make the teacher more assessable to the parents. This could help students succeed in the classroom because parents can be more involved in their education. Even working parents can be as involved as non-working parents. They can see pictures and videos of their students work from the classroom with the existing technology.
As technology becomes more involved in the students lives I think that it will have to become more dominant in the classroom in order to keep the students attention and maximize their learning potential. Students need to have technology in their education and lives in order for the students to succeed in the future. Teachers need to keep up with technologies in order to keep up with their students. We as teachers need to make sure we know what are student are doing and are interested in to keep their interest in the classroom and to keep them on task especially with the changing technologies.
I think in the future there will be much more technology in the classroom. I hope in the future that each student will be able to have their own computer. Students will be able to take notes electronically and communicate with others electronically as well. Teachers will all keep electronic files on their students which will be more efficient when it comes time to assess the students. Students will have access to more information that is not available in the classroom or library now. New videos and ways to communicate with people all over the world students will have access unlimited information. They will do most of their homework and testing online which can be graded and assessed more quickly. Students will also be able to do more lessons on the computer which will be able to help students who are struggling in class or are ahead of other students in the class. When each student has more access to technology each lesson will be able to be adjusted to the appropriate level. In the future students will be more prepared when they come into the classroom because parents will be able to become more involved even at a distance and they will be familiar with text from all the technology they are constantly surrounded by such as video games and television.
The future of teaching and learning will be interesting to see how each changes as the world changes. The important thing is that we as teachers need to keep up with technology as well as our students to be effective in the classroom.

I love educational technology... NOT

Using technology in the classroom or at home can be rewarding and stressful. Throughout the class I have felt both. I have had my internet shut down in the middle of projects or have had issues with things just not cooperating with me at a particular moment. I think the most stressful thing for me is the webquest. Searching for reliable and reputable sources online is difficult. I do not want to refer my students or a teacher to Wikipedia by any means and many other websites are too vague or too detailed for ECE students. In order to use any technology in your classroom it must be previewed first and that has to be the most tedious and stressful task because you are basically reviewing every aspect of the media from visual, readability and information. I think that I could learn any type of technology with the right guidance. I grew up in an age where I was constantly surrounded by changing media like video games, music, television and computers. I am adaptable to learning and using the new technology that is thrown at me which will be very valuable to me as a teacher in the future.

While I have been in classrooms I have seen many issues with technology. I have seen students get “click-happy” with the computers until they freeze and need rebooted which is something I am concerned with being an ECE teacher. I have also been in classes where I have linked a video and it got deleted or moved and did not work for a presentation which is embarrassing and can ruin a lesson if that was a key aspect of the lesson. Another thing that I am worried about with ECE students is them being near expensive technology. They are often pushing and tripping the bumping into things. In the first grade classroom I was in I saw the printer get unplugged at least four or five times in three months!!

When I have my own classroom I would like to keep electronic records on my students, and after being in this class I really thing that would be helpful and efficient but during this class I was working on the RWA project where you fill in the boxes and use Blooms Taxonomy and my computer shut down three times and I lost all my information which was stressful because I had to keep on re-doing it! Also during this class I had to get a new hard drive on my desktop computer where I usually do a lot of my work, luckily my work was all backed up so I learned exactly why that needs to be done almost daily because if I kept electronic records on my students and the computer crashed I would be up the creek when it came time for grades to be turned in!

All in all I found Educational technology to be very helpful because even when I knew how to use a particular piece or technology or a certain program I was able to get ideas on how to implement it into my classroom.