Technology Integration: What I've Learned

Technology has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember but it wasn’t until recently that I discovered how helpful it could be in the classroom.  I have learned so much about how technology can be a wonderful tool that will help students of all learning abilities succeed.  As a student I always found technology to be intimidating and as I got older, I used it mainly to type assignments and connect with my friends.  As an educator, when technology was discussed, I always thought of “technology integration” as watching a movie or having students type their papers.  During student teaching I got my first glimpse of technology in the classroom; my cooperating teacher had the students make public service announcements using a recording application on the computer called GarageBand.  The students recorded the announcement and the announcements were aired on the school webpage.  I thought this was one of the coolest ways for the students to make public service announcements that I had ever seen.  Since learning that skill plus learning about all the other sources of technology that are available to teachers for their students, I have a new respect for technology use within the classroom. 

What’s even more awesome about all the available technology is that it is so easy to connect to the state standards, which means it is applicable to the student’s current learning.  What I find remarkable it that it is also applicable to my learning; through this course I am learning about the many different tools I can use as an educator.  I can currently use some of the tools we learned about in my current job as a toddler teacher; a WebQuest could easily be adapted to meet the needs of a toddler and I could also easily create an Animoto video geared toward shapes or colors that would appeal to them.  I am looking forward to using some of the more complex tools, like Wordle and a more in-depth WebQuest, to reach older students when I do eventually get a teaching job.  Having this handle on technology is a great asset to have while looking for a teaching position because technology is becoming more prevalent in many schools.  Technology is a very useful tool within the classroom in so many ways.