People are always surprised when they find out I graduated from Georgia Tech. It’s true, not a lot Tech grads end up being teachers and not a lot of people head to Tech with teaching in mind. So yes, it’s fair to be surprised to discover that I, a teacher, graduated from a school known for their technology, but now, more than ever, the pedagogical and technological worlds are not mutually exclusive. This generation of learners is comprised of young people whose lives are completely immersed in technology. Nearly every student in America can text, email, post videos, create digital media, and so on, like it is second nature, and though there are drawbacks to this fact, this technological fluidity amongst our youth affords them some incredible advantages when it comes to learning. It’s up to us teachers to harness the power of technology and use it for the benefit of our students.
In my five years in the classroom, I have witnessed a concerted shift in views concerning in-class technology. In that short amount of time, it has gone from being perceived as a secondary tool for teaching to a dynamic medium for learning. During my first year as a teacher, the only technology I used in my classroom (besides a calculator) was a computer and that was primarily for typing papers. The next year, I got a smartboard. Two years later, all my students had school-issued Chromebooks. The implementation of technology in classrooms is now ubiquitous and, to me, it feels like its potential is nearly limitless. The question that keeps popping up in my mind, then, is how to find a balance between technology and more traditional learning. How do we gain all the advantages that technology affords our students without losing the benefits of pencils, paper, and books?
This happy medium between technology and traditionalism is where this course has been particularly beneficial to my teaching career. I’ve been able to discuss the positives and negatives of technology with my peers and I’ve been able to learn about some new technological platforms and programs along the way, but of most benefit have been the assignments and projects in which I’ve seen the advantage of integrating technology with tried and true, standard learning methods. I’ve already mentioned this project a few times, but there’s no better example of this than the Digital Storytelling project in which the class mixed technology with storytelling to create poignant, audiovisual vignettes. I truly enjoyed creating my own digital story (as did several classmates with whom I’ve spoken) and I’m almost positive my students would enjoy it too. By finding and creating projects and assignments that intertwine technology with traditional aspects of learning like we did in the Digital Storytelling project, I will have found that happy medium for own my classroom and for the benefit of my students.
No comments:
Post a Comment