I was introduced to the computer at a young age with roadrunner on our home pc, but beyond playing games I didn’t use the computer very much until around 1994 when my family got AOL. Around that time I started exploring more of the virtual world. My first computer class wasn’t until I was a freshman in high school; really the class was a glorified typing class in which we type pages from a book into Word and were occasionally tested on vocabulary words about the computer. In my senior year of high school I took my second computer class, which had just been started that year, and focused on programming rather than learning how to type. In college I worked on a number of independent projects which used computers to solve problems that required collecting and integrating information from multiple disciplines. However, this is my first blog and I have limited experience when it comes to working with applications outside Word/Excel/etc.
I believe that technology holds the potential to solve many of the most difficult problems that our world faces, so in general I am favorable to technology. However, I feel that the use of technology is a double edge sword. On the one hand the internet gives us access to as much information that we can handle, but on the other hand the quality of that information can be questionable and the discipline to check sources isn’t always present. Another example of this are cell phones, on the one hand they allow students to be in touch with their family in case of emergency but many phones also give access to the internet and so can also be used as a tool for cheating.
The video and article touch on my expectations from this course. To be specific, from this course I am hoping that we will be focusing on how to integrate technology into the classroom in a way that involves get both students more interested in the class material and inform parents of how their child’s progress. Additionally I am interested in resources open to teachers who want to keep ahead of the latest technological trends and programs which help teachers to coordinate interdisciplinary projects. Keeping ahead of technological trends is extremely important as classes which fall too far behind the curve tend to lose their effectiveness, and since it seems that technology is outdated by time it hits the shelf staying on top of the changes is all the more important.
You are correct that technology brings an abundant amount of information. The difficult task of teacher is to assist students in becoming good consumers of information.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about how cell phones can be good and bad. I remember when I was in high school about ten years ago and I would have to call my parents after soccer practice so they could come pick me up. Cell phones were not very popular and I would use the pay phone outside of the school. The last time I was at my old high school the pay phones were no longer in use because everybody has cell phones. So it is good for the kids to have them when they need to contact their parents. But last semester during my fieldwork my cooperating teacher caught students texting answers to each other during a test. There is definitely good and bad to all technology.
ReplyDeleteTim,
ReplyDeleteI think I took that same Computers 1 class in my high school. It was so boring!
I agree with you that technology can solve many of our problems. Advances are made every day in many fields because of technology. It's unfortunate that instances like, the Gulf oil leak that we just went through, that sometimes our technology isn't sufficient enough to solve the problem.