Journal Post 4

Chapter 4

Integrating Technology and Creating Change.

How can teachers integrate technology into their work as educators?

           

            Let’s start with the definition of technology integration and educational change. Technology integration refers to ways that teachers build technology into all aspects of their professional work. Educational change refers to innovations by teachers that create new patterns of teaching and learning in school. Together they make technology a central part of education, enabling the unique, powerful, and transforming impacts of computers and other tools to be part of every student’s daily experience in schools.

           

            Technology integration doesn't mean computer technologies replace nonelectric resources in every teaching situation. You have to be creative with it! This way, together with your students, discover the power of computer technologies. The use of technology can be subsided in three primary ways. One way is inside-the-classroom teaching tools. Teachers use technology to present academic material and create interactive learning experiences for students in the classroom.  An example is like the infamous PowerPoint presentations we have all used at least once in our life. I personally love it because I've grown accustom to using it. A second way technology can be used is outside-the-classroom as a professional resource. By this I mean, using technology to manage the administrative demands they face in school. One common example is keeping their grades and attendance recorded. Technology can come in handy when trying to do recordkeeping. Teachers have slowly change their ways and have come more dependent on the programs that computer offer to make their jobs a little easier. Finally, the third primary way is inside- and outside-the-classroom learning resources for the students. In this category teachers ask students to use technology in academic learning during class time as well as outside of school. Group projects, internet research, and creative writing are some great examples of this.

Photo Credit to James F Clay

At the end of the day, the goal is to help technology become a daily part of learning. It can extend the time that teachers may spend with students, making it possible for teachers to individualize instruction for students who need the extra help. Let’s face it; we all know there will be always those students who need the extra help, who need that extra attention. In today’s time, we have the opportunity to have computers that have different learning tool programs, at different levels, for every individual student. We need to take advantage of it! It has also given teachers the chance to organize and manage their work electrically. Duties can be conducted using multiple forms of information technology—from word processing, email, record-keeping software to manage attendance, etc. Just an endless amount of opportunities are given with technology and why not use it!

Edutopia

            

            Edutopia, is one of the websites of Tech Tool links that I explored. It had a tremendous amount of information and inspiration on how to successfully integrate technology into the classroom. It offered a variety of different links to articles, blogs, guides, and even videos for insights on what you were looking for. I explored around the integration of technology because that is what I mainly focused on in this chapter. The guidelines they have are very useful and appropriate for a classroom teacher. Overall, I consumed a great amount of information that will come in handy when I become a teacher.

Summary

            

          Chapter overall focuses on technology integration and educational change to help teachers introduce technology into both classroom instruction and professional work outside the work force. Of course, issues and strategies were brought upon with ways for teachers to address the problems of the digital inequality and participation gap. Unwillingness to change a favorite lesson to include technology was probably the one I was must familiar with. After many years of being a student, I have witnessed this with my own eyes. Many of the teachers had all these new gadgets in their rooms and never once used them to their ability! They were afraid it would change the way they taught. Change is good. And if technology can be used to improve your teaching, why not use it? The chapter also introduced new concepts such as, ‘informing” and ‘automating”, and there were also strategies for using whatever technology teachers had to promote a way into teaching and learning.