Week One

This week has been interesting to say the least.  With class just starting up I feel that everything has been so fast and just thrown into my brain to be looked at for another time.  At the same time this week has made my love for technology open again and had me reexamine with the lessons from Week one what I can change or make better for my students. 

          At the beginning of this week I learned that technology is not just a computer, iPad, or some device we use now.  That technology was around in different forms even when they built the 7 wonders of the world.  The pyramids required technology to be built.  They may not have had a laptop to bring up a program to lay out the structure for them, but they needed to know how to lay it out, what would stand, and why it needed to be built a certain way.  Technology has changed over the years and it will continue to change for future generations.  I’m sure they will look back at us one day and think the laptop was crazy to use.

          In the classroom I am going to start having my kids take pride in the times we use technology, not just take advantage of it without even thinking, but to understand what they are doing and to respect digital citizenship.  I want them to be able to accomplish various task with technology, but not rely on it to do things for them.

          I feel the main challenge that I as well as other classes will face with technology will be the students letting the technology do it for them.  We need to stress that the students are in charge of understanding the concepts, but technology is another tool for them to use.  Technology is not a quick way of getting the answer without them understanding for themselves.  To overcome this I will use technology as a reward after the skill is mastered, or an advanced way for them upon understanding of the skill.

          With the Technology Explorations, I fell in love with Tumblebooks and with Tikatok.  My students love to read and write if it is not the tradition sense.  They love the imagination running wild and creating a story to share with others, tikatok will help me to make this happen for them in a different sense and show great pride in their work.  Tumblebooks is another great source I can use with them to encourage reading!!