Thursday, April 29, 2010

Classroom Technology




After taking EDM310 at the University of South Alabama I realized just how important it was for today's teachers to be technologically literate. In my future classroom I plan to use every amount of technology available to me to enrich my students life. Kids today use technology everyday in their lives and for teachers not to use that to their advantage to make learning fun or at least more enjoyable for them, I believe, is a crime. I realize that for some change is scary or unneeded but this is something that will not go away. Technology is only getting more advanced so not to learn or use it to learn is really pointless because you will eventually have to use it. Such things as the SMART Board and Computers make learning fun and easier for kids. My son is currently in Kindergarten and his class recently got a SMART Board. He said his whole class loves it. I can actually see the difference in his learning since they have begun to use it. I think that as teachers we owe it to our students to excite them about learning!!

iTunes U




I plan to use iTunes U in my classroom by posting podcast of lessons so that if a child is absent from school they will not get behind. This will also eliminate any make-up work that would further delay the class. iTunes U will also be a great way for parents to check up on their child's learning and to help them with anything they don't understand because they will know exactly what the teacher excepts instead of hearing it from the child. I wish we had iTunes U when I was in school so that I could have taken advantage of that.

Google Documents



I will use Google Documents in the classroom as well. This will eliminate the hassle of my students and their parents buying and carrying around disks and usb storage drives. A Google document is free and it doesn't matter what computer the students get on they will always be able to access their Google documents. With Google documents, my students will be able to write word documents and do presentations and share them with me and their classmates. This is probably one of my favorite things I've learned this year!