Hi everyone! My name is Jenna. I am a senior Spanish Secondary Education major. I want to become an ESL or ELL teacher in the future. Last spring I was fortunate enough to study in Granada, Spain. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I would highly encourage everyone to travel abroad at some point in their college career. I am a member of the varsity volleyball team here at IWU. I would not call myself technology savy, however, I would also not describe myself as technologically incompetent. I have taken computer classes on how to use Microsoft office and am quite familiar with how to use Power Point. I recognize that technology is becoming more and more important and vital in our everday lives. I am excited to learn more about how to incorporate technology into the classroom in order to teach new concepts and help the student's understand the importance of technology in our world today.

Teaching with technology means relying on the many forms of technology such as computers, video, recordings, etc. to teach students new concepts. When a teacher uses technology to implement new ideas or reinforce old concepts in the classroom, the students are required to use different types of thinking and other thought processing.

I think the biggest challenge of teaching with technology is to be sure that each student is processing the information to the best of their ability. For example, one student may prefer to listen to the teacher lecture and read from a power point, where another student will be totally unengaged by such a teaching approach. It is challenging for teachers to find a teaching approach that will be beneficial to the majority of the students in the classroom and I think that is one risk you take when teaching with technology.

The benefits of teaching with technolgy are endless. As I said earlier, today's society is very reliant on technology for proper functioning. It is so important that we, as future teachers, recognize the need to teach the younger population of the importance of technology and the proper skills in order to function in a technology based society. One benefit of teaching with technology is that it allows students to interact and incorporate different types of skills into one teaching approach. For example, while completing an online activity for math, a student can practice their motor skills in addition to practicing their logical thinking skills in math at the same time. Another benefit of teaching with technology is that it is FUN for students to work with computers, cameras, etc.

From this course, I hope to learn how to properly incorporate technology into my classroom in a manner that engages the majority of my students.