As a teacher I have always viewed technology integration in the classroom as an important part of education today. With that being said I know that in my first three years of teaching I have not utilized technology as much as I could have or should have. Being an elementary school teacher has proven to be more challenging and more chaotic than I ever imagined it would be. Fitting my entire curriculum into 180 school days always seems like an impossible task especially since I am solely responsible for teaching every subject to my students. Time seems to be my arch nemesis as a teacher. Due to the constant lack of time that I consistently feel that I have, something seems to always get bumped and that tends to be technology activities. The biggest reason for this is because it takes a lot of my personal time to research online sites and activities to use with my students.
Before taking this course tech integration was always integrated into my classroom but I think that I may have viewed it as something that was in addition to my curriculum as opposed to a part of my curriculum. As this course has progressed the biggest thing that I have realized is that there is SOOOOOOOOOO much out there to do on the web that allows students to be creative, have fun, show who they are and best of all learn through application as opposed to learning just through listening. BUT I am still back to my initial difficulty which is TIME. Recently it dawned on me though. Technology use isn’t in addition to everything else it should be a part of everything else. Through taking this course I have come to realize that I need to really examine my teaching practices and figure out how I can use technology more often to teach the core concepts of my curriculum and then have the students apply their knowledge through a tech related activity. Instead of viewing technology projects as an addition in my classroom I need to view it as a part of what I already do. If I can find a way to decrease the amount of direct instruction I give then I’m sure that I can find more time for student centered exploration, analysis and application through the use of technology.
Overall this course has opened my eyes to how many fantastic kid oriented technology applications that there are available out there. Also I have realized that it’s easier to use these applications than I originally thought. All you need is a little bit of time to learn them for yourself……ohh wait, there is that TIME word again……. Nothing is ever easy!!!!!!!!
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