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Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Skills

I am a junior who is an education interdiscinplanary, and so I am not going to be in a classroom teaching children, however I will be working in a hospital setting with young children who are going through some kind of treatment or are going to have an operation.

Throughout my different experiences, I have been able to work with a variety of programs in the Microsoft office. I have used word and power point throughout my high school experience for different assignments and projects. With my work study job, I have also gotten the chance to work with excel on a daily basis. I am also a head coach for a softball team and have designed a web site for the team which I continually update so I have worked with front page quite a bit lately to keep that going.

To me, teaching with technology means involving a variety of programs into the classrooms and using it as a way to help kids. Since children all learn in a different way, using technology in a power point form can help for them to see the material they are talking about and use it as a guide. I also think technology in the classroom can be using things like a movie or playing music or letting the students themselves get on the computer and do some different activities. Another new part of technology in the classroom is the Smart board where everything can be put on a screen in the room and the teacher and student is able to do the work on the screen.

I think the biggest challenge of teaching with technology is making sure that it is not the same kind of things over and over and making sure there is a little change here and there. If the same type of lesson is done again and again, students may start to get bored and lose interest in the subject matter because everything is the same. Also, there are times when I feel that teachers rely on the technology too much and begin to stop being active in their classrooms and let the computers and other things do it for them.

I believe the benefits of technology can be really good for the students if done in the correct way. I think that if power point is used to give lessons now and then and students watch a movie or get on a computer to see what they are learning about done in a physical way, it can really help them. The hands on experience of things can help the material to sink in more than hearing a lecture. This will also help for those students who learn in a different way and are not always hearing what the teacher is saying but needs to see it written down.

From this course, I am hoping to learn how I can use technology in my office and in my job as a child life specialist. This would help me to get to use the computer to work with both the children and their families as they prepare for their operations or treatments, or whatever they are going through.

2 comments:

Luci said...

I think you make some very good points. I agree that teachers need to use technology while not allowing the lessons to become boring and the same. I really like the idea of incorporating multiple forms of media and entertainment to teach, I think that will captivate the attention of students. The use of technology used to cater to the multiple intelligences is a wonderful idea as well, it's a great way to teach to many different learning styles, which is critical in the classroom.

emc2teach said...

I am impressed with your desire to take this class even though you will not necessarily be in a classroom. I think you made a lot of good points such as making sure you change up the lessons so that the students don't get bored. I think you have had a great deal of background work thanks to your jobs. I will be looking forward to your insight as we learn more skills.