Technology+Integration

// This was my very first experience with technology integration in the classroom. It exposed me to the many ways that technology can be used to engage and teach students in the modern classroom. My students will all have been using technology from a young age by the time that they reach my classroom, and it is my job to find creative ways to lesson plan and integrate new and exciting ways of learning into the classroom. After exploring some of the many uses of technology, I am excited to challenge myself and my students with the very best tools out there. //

The video that I chose to reflect on was the one in which “Teacher-training coordinator David Grant describes a framework for project learning success”. This was an interesting video for me because he does a good job of not only explaining the reasons behind their integrating of technology in the school, but also goes into detail explaining how they implement this and what the outcomes are. I learned several things about technology integration from the video such as flexible scheduling when working on projects allow them to mimic the real world. I also learned that a good way to implement technology in the classroom is to have the teachers complete the projects before the students ever get started so that the teachers have credibility, and the students have examples to learn from. Another important take away from the video is that it is important to encourage the student’s access to a variety of forms of media such as producing a piece of music or art on the computer, or developing their own business and business models using technology. This allows different types of learners, different ways of expressing themselves, and ultimately finding areas that they excel in.

The importance of technology integration has been driven home through the readings and videos that I’ve completed. It starts with simply the fact that a big way that most children experience the world and new things nowadays is through many different forms of technology. We as teachers need to use the best possible tools to be able to effectively teach our students, and this includes using “today’s tools” to teach “today’s students” in the age of technology. I plan on implementing technology in many different ways in my future classroom including computer based lesson planning and grading, interactive teaching techniques like smart boards(depending on the school) and power point, and project based learning like some of the different ones that take place in the video that I reflected on above. There are new technologies developing all the time that will hopefully help me find effective and creative ways to integrate technology to best teach and stimulate my students.