Technology in Classrooms

Teachers are influenced to have their students use technology in the classroom because of the day and age we are in first and foremost, but it also creates a new method of engagement and learning. It focuses on different aspects of learning style and triggers certain sensory skills that are not targeted when just writing on paper or listening to a lecture. 

Technology is something that is evolving so fast nowadays, the standards that International Society for Technology in Education, has established help students grow and evolve with the technology. These standards embody the ideology of encouraging technology in the classful in helpful ways, not to just make the computer do the teaching. One standard that really stands out to me and is something that I find important is the student standard of the creative communicator.  This standard vouches for the creativity in a student to be let out and to use technology to put emphasis on the subjects that are often dismissed, like art, science, and social studies. The global communicator standard is definitely something that is way out of my element, I would have no idea on where to begin to collaborate with students globally. I do however love the idea of this, this allows students to get feedback from other sides of the world.  I think if I were to learn more about the both of these standards, they would be something I would want to combine together and incorporate into my teaching. 

The digital native is defined as a person born or brought up during the age of digital technology. I think today’s youth is most definitely a digital native. It is so common for adults, whether it is teachers or parents to ask younger children or teenagers for help with their electronic devices. It is almost as if we, and todays’ youth, have a sixth sense that allows us to fiddle around and figure out technology/ It seems that adults do not have that mindset or skill to mess around with their device. Technology was started to be incorporated into my learning in late elementary school, with the bug concept of Smart Boards, and now there is so much more than that. I think teachers have come a long way from where we originally started out. I always remember my teachers could never turn on the Smart Board, but now they are making interactive games and PowerPoints. I think the use of technology during my childhood and throughout my education was more or less a teaching situation for both us the students, and the teacher. They were giving us information, but we also helped them with the technology that was incorporated in our classroom. I think this will also be the case for when it becomes my turn to teach as well. I work with kids, and they know so much more than I do about my computer or phone, they have grown up with these devices, while it was something that was all introduced to us much later.