Blog Assignment #1

Technology has been used by my teachers throughout my entire educational experience. I can remember working on computers since the early grades of Elementary school and my professors currently use various forms of technology to teach my classes today. These include using computers for powerpoint presentations, word processing, and the internet for research or communication. My teachers have also used videos, DVDs, and electronic devices that allowed us to respond to the teacher's questions in class. Although I have found these technologies to be interesting and helpful, I can only think of a few instances where technology really helped me understand a concept.
One time that this happened was in my middle school science classes when we would always watch the Bill Nye the Science Guy videos. This helped my classmates and me to understand and learn about scientific concepts that we could not experiment with ourselves. The way that these specific videos are set up allows the audience (the students) to make predictions along the way about what is going to happen when Bill does his experiment and why that would occur, then to watch the actual results and get an explanation of why the experiment went that way. Since this allowed us to visually see the experiment rather than just hear about it, it was a great way to create a deeper understanding of the concepts. It was integrated into the instruction because my teacher would then have us discuss what we thought of the experiment, relate it to previous knowledge, and sometimes have us perform a related experiment.
Another example of technology in the classroom was in high school English, where we were reading The Iliad. Our teacher found a great website where you could quiz yourself on your knowledge and understanding of the characters and events. You could not move on to the next set of trivia questions until you answered the first ones correctly. This encouraged us to go back to the book and look for the correct answers, which led to a very strong understanding of the story. Our teacher would use the game as a discussion point in class where we could talk about what different parts of the book symbolized. This integration of technology allowed us to assess and increase our own learning while having fun, which is always a positive way to engage students. The only problem with this was that the game was assigned as homework, so any students without internet access would have trouble completing the questions. This is something to take into consideration when using technology as an outside assignment.
-Chrissy C