Reflection 1

I remember being around the age of 10 when my family bought a computer.  I thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I spend a lot of time downloading music from Napster using dial up and it took FOREVER to get a song, but was worth it.  Just looking at how technology has changed from then is amazing.  I just got an i phone this summer and couldn’t believe how much you could do with it.  I use technology more personally than I do when teaching.  I am an Adapted PE teacher, so I work with children with special needs in the physical education setting.  I don’t use any technology to teach physical skills.  I do a lot of demonstrating and modeling, so I am interested to find out the many ways technology can be used in education. 

When I read Postman’s article I felt that he was definitely not pro technology, but I did agree and see his point of view.  With technology I feel that there is satisfaction for a while, but it’s always about creating something better.  Is that good or is that bad that so much time is spent on making things better even if it is not a necessity?  Every year a new model of everything comes out and some people feel like they HAVE to have the latest and greatest things. 

As a PE teacher, mother and wife, I do find computers/technology to be distracting like he suggested.  Examples of this are my overweight nephews whose favorite things to do are…surf the internet, watch tv, play video games….catch my drift.  But this could also be a parenting issue because they are also unhealthy eaters.  Another example is my husband always messing around on his i phone.  I see this all the time, people eating at restaurants, while driving….drives me insane.  I DO however think that technology in education is a great way to make teaching and learning interesting to both students and teachers.  I have seen Smartboards used in a center based school for children with special needs and thought they were amazing. 

After reading Reigeluth and Joseph’s article, I agree that technology is very important when you have many students with different needs who learn different ways and at different rates.  I used to be a paraprofessional at a center based special needs school, and I must say technology was a must there.  I worked in a SXI classroom and each student had MANY needs and were very different from each other.  Some students pushed buttons or switches to talk for them, some used their foot to hit switches to communicate.  There was technology everywhere in the classroom.  Technology definitely transformed teaching to meet the needs of these children. 

When this article stated that teachers become more of a “guide on the side” my first thought was…this makes it sound as if teachers are not really needed in the classroom and we could be easily replaced.  A peer of mine once stated that he thought online classes should be made available to students as early as late elementary.  I thought he was crazy, but with the way technology is advancing I wouldn’t be surprised if one day it happened.  I think in some areas high school students can take online classes, is this correct??