Throughout my entire education up until this point, technology has always been incorporated in my classrooms. I never had an idea of how big of a role that it played in my education until now. I feel that integrating different types of technologies into the classroom to aide new learning is a wonderful idea. Technology is everywhere in our society today and I feel that it gives students a great way to connect new information being learned to everyday life. However, I do not think that technologies such as computers, Internet, the television, etc. should replace teaching. The integration of technology and teaching should go hand in hand.
I remember being in my Elementary School and finally getting computers in our classroom. We had always had a computer lab, but never one in our actual classroom. Every student in the class was excited and when it came to free time, everyone fought over who was going to get a chance to use the computer first. It got so bad that my teacher had to come up with a computer schedule and students could only go on the class computer the day that they were assigned.
The computer was one of the first pieces of technology incorporated in my school learning and I can remember the first time technology really impacted my learning.
I was in the fifth grade and our class was writing a thank you letter to a guest speaker. My teacher thought that it would be better if our class letter was typed. So, she hooked her computer up to the television so we could all see what was being typed. I just thought it was so cool that you could view a computer through a TV and that activity really inspired me to learn to type better on the computer. The computer/TV display aided our class in constructing an appropriate thank you letter.
If you were ask me a little bit ago whether technology really impacted my learning, I would have said no. But now I see and understand that technology has played a big role in my education and that it can play a big role in the minds of my future students if used appropriately.