Lesson 1 - Educational Technology

I knew that technology was important but after the reading this week, I realized that technology consumes our lives in all aspects, from paying bills, to communicating, and researching.  After I thought more about it, I actually don't know what I would do without technology and I know now that technology will be a key part in my teaching.  Technology is awesome and it really makes life a whole lot easier IF you know how to use it.  My favorite quote from chapter one was, "The world is different. Kids are different...learning is different...and teaching must be different too.  Today's classroom teachers must be prepared to provide technology-supported learning opportunities for their students"(NETS T 2002).   Just knowing about technology is not enough, as a teacher you must be able to demonstrate how technologies work,  this will enrich and enhance your students learning. Thats why I want to know all I can about different types of technology that can be used to help students learn and get them interested in learning.  Just like kids love video games, they love computers, and if you use something beside a chalkboard with lots of color there instantly attracted to that. ISTE which stand for The International Socity for Technology is Education is an organization that has a project called the National Educational Techonology Standards for Teachers Project(NETS.T).  NETS.T website provides teachers a description of what technology using teacher should be able to do and also deteremines your technology level.  NETS.T provides ways to implement technology into your classroom, I will need to facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity, design and develop digital-age learning experiecnes and assessments, model digital-age work and learning, promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility, and engage in professional gorwth and leadership.  The challenge that I will face with using different types of technology in the classroom is helping the students to learn how to use these expecially if a child is not familiar, that will make it a little bit more difficult until the student adjust to using more technology and being able to demonstrate his own capability of using teachnology by themself. Things I can do to prepare myself for these challegnes is to make sure that I'm am fully educated in using technology myself and being able to realize that not every student learns the same or on the same pace. A good video for older students to see is 'A vision of Today's Student' it is a really neat video that really shows you how todays students time is spent and how technology effects there life in more ways then just using technology for learning purposes.  One thing that stuck out to me was that students use more technology for communication then using the resources they have for their education.

One quote that I have to add to my blog is one that I found on a website yesterday.
'Intergrating technology into any curriculum is ideal when it can be meaningfully applied to help student's improve their performance, discover new way of using the power of technology and embrace new content.  Technology is limited by available resources, creativity and time to plan, implement and revise ideas.  All of these factors are surmountable with a little ingenuity, patience, hard work and desire.' (Ennis_Cole)