As a young adult who has spent half of her life using the internet, I tend to take it for granted. Technology has been a huge part of my personal life, and has impacted my own learning, but I have yet to truly integrate it into my teaching. Will Richardson discusses how the read/write web has profoundly changed our lives. I completely agree, but I am part of "an educational system that is out of touch with the way students learn."
As Richardson points out, the vast majority of our students are extremely comfortable with technology. Many of them enjoy the opportunity to use new tools, and just play around and figure them out. In order to use them as part of our teaching, however, we must ourselves be comfortable with them. Many of the skills that are intuitive to a student of this technological generation must be learned by adults. I feel that until I am extremely comfortable with a tool, and feel able to answer any questions students might have in using it, I will have reservations about implementing the use of it in my classroom.
I know that teaching with technology sparks the interest of most students, but I wasn't aware that so many students feel that it is an extremely important part of education. I don't want to do my students a disservice by ignoring such valuable tools. I am also struck by Richardson's insight that "Giving students a chance to share their work with a global audience is an importat first step, but there is much more to it. It's the converstaions, the links, and the networks that grow from them afterward that really show us the profound implications for lifelong learning."
It is funny that you grew up with technology, use it in your personal life, and learned with it, but have not integrated it into your lessons as much as you would like. I am not surprised though because it takes time to create and test new programs and lessons, and then many of the useful, free websites are blocked.
ReplyDeleteIt is great to have the opportunity to create lessons in this class where we have guidance, advice, and time.
The "global audience" struck me too, and I can see where it would be fun for your foreign language students to talk to people around the world.
Students today are extremely comfortable with technology. By bringing technology into the classroom we are tapping into their comfort zone. It does take time to re-tool our lessons, but after the initial input we now have a lesson we can use in a format the students will enjoy.
ReplyDelete