Thursday, November 19, 2015

TIB Proposal

Natalie Liebenauer
Dr. Shutkin
ED 100
20 November 2015


TIB Proposal
I believe that technology currently plays a major role in the educational world. It has become a way for teachers to integrate lessons in their classroom in a way that is fun and interesting for the students. Often times teachers find it difficult to try and keep their students engaged in a lesson that they do not find interesting. Some will turn to technology because it is something most children nowadays are very familiar with. Since many teenagers and even young children have become so use to using technology on a daily basis, integrating it into a lesson in the classroom can allow students to become creative and use it in a way that allows them to express themselves.
If teachers believe that technology can help their students learn, they will be more open to using it in their classrooms. This does not mean that the students will “learn” from technology, but rather that it will be used to provide the tools for authentic learning. It allows teachers to move away from streamlining the way things have always been to imagining things in a way that appeals to them and their students. As helpful as technology can be in the classroom, it can also be a problem when abused and not used in the way it was intended for.
Sometimes when teachers allow their students to use the internet for research in class, the students will take advantage of this and use the internet for other things and not even get the assignment done. It is very easy for the students to get distracted when given freedom to use technology. Since this can be a big problem with technology in classrooms, I think it is important for teachers to be able to monitor what the students are looking up. This may seem like an invasion of privacy, but when teachers want to use the internet in a way that is beneficial to the students, it is important they are getting whatever was assigned done.
It is also very important that teachers do not become dependent on technology. It should not be used as a way for the teacher to not have to teach that day or to take up time. I know often times in my classrooms in middle school and high school, the teacher would have us play a game or watch a movie that sometimes had nothing to do with what we were learning, but it was a way for them to get done whatever they needed to and it kept us occupied during their class period. Using technology in this way is not helpful to the students and may even cause them to become disengaged in the class.
Many grade schools and high schools now have laptops and iPads that the students are able to use during class periods. In classrooms that I observed, students are being introduced to technology as early as kindergarten and this can be a problem. At that age, there really is nothing that a student that young should be using technology for. It usually is for them to play games, but there are so many games that teachers have in their classrooms already that allowing them to play on iPads is not beneficial to them. This contributes to the problem of young teens becoming very dependent on technology because they are so used to having it at their disposal at all times, inside and out of school.

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