Chapter
4
Four starts off talking about all
the concerns and complications that come with using technology in the
classroom. It discusses everything that is frustrating about it. Then it talks
about how the teachers adopted new technology and were able to problem solve
for themselves. It helped teachers to keep children from cheating or illegally
downloading material and learning to trouble shoot their technical problems.
Lastly, the chapter goes over how teachers have adapted or embraced it and used
it to their advantage in the classroom such as IEPs, grades, and spreadsheets.
Teaching a younger grade I can
totally relate to all the frustrations at the beginning of the chapter. When my
students started school they didn’t know how to turn a computer on or off. They
can barely type in their names and passcodes. This is truly frustrating because
a helper or I have to go around and help them type in their usernames and passwords.
Then when you are done helping with that you have to show them how to double
click on the Internet icon to get to the educational games. It is one of the
most frustrating forty-five minutes of my week. I don’t really have to deal
with my students cheating or illegally downloading anything. They are too young
to understand any of that. The computer does become a distraction in my class
when one child is on it working .The others want to hoover around them and
watch. For example, one of my students is ELL so the ELL teacher wants her to
work on a special computer program for a certain amount of time a day. When she
does this the other students think it is unfair she gets to play on the
computer everyday and they don’t. They then all stand behind her and try to
watch. This becomes extremely annoying when you are trying to get the rest of
your class to do their work. If they were older and could understand why she
has to use the computer it would be easier, but because we are young the
computer becomes an annoying distraction.
It is interesting to see what technology use looks like in the primary grades. It is the almost exact opposite at the high school level, however their are some similarities. Although, in high school the password problem is not present, but there are many other things that fill the place of it. For instance no matter how much our school tries to keep facebook and YouTube blocked at our school, our kids find a way around it. I have to admit a few years back I had one of my students help me get around the firewall and get on YouTube to show a couple of videos. It got me in a little trouble...but maybe it worked, because the school unblocked YouTube for teachers the next year.
ReplyDeleteThat's funny! I don't have problems of sneaking into different websites. Just actually getting to one is a trick. I don't know about you guys, but we have to be really careful about YouTube. We really are suppose to have the principal watch it first and approve it. Because we have to do that most people just look for pre-approved items on our district website. Which stinks because I have found really cool/helpful videos that I don't use because it is kind of a hassle to get it pre-approved.
DeleteI think it is really good to see that you are teaching students how to use technology in the younger grade. I remembered when I first time learned how to use computer was in middle school. Obviously it was like Windows 95 or so, like really old, so I probably wouldn't have too many questions. I think just give students the amount of time and they will eventually get used to the system then you can do whatever you want them to do in your class
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