Gina Pagliaccetti Classroom Technology

All throughout my education, I have experienced the use of technology in my classrooms as an aid for teaching. One situation in which technology was used to help me learn that sticks out in my mind was during my freshman year of high school. During each year of high school, I was assigned to write a research paper in my English class. As an introductory lesson, my class was taken to the library to receive a lesson from the librarian. In each classroom in the library there was a Smart Board. The librarian began by showing the class how to look up and access books and other materials throughout the library. This entailed signing onto my high school’s website, clicking a link for the library, and using that site to search materials held in the library. She then continued to use the Smart Board in order to show us how to properly search the Internet for articles and other information we could use in our research papers. She began by signing onto the Internet using a keyboard. Throughout the lesson, the librarian allowed us to use the Smart Board by doing things such as touching a link projected onto the Smart Board in order to navigate through different sites. While most of the students were interested in the Smart Board, I felt it did not have much to do with the lesson. Aside from providing a large screen for all of the students to easily see, I do not think the Smart Board benefited the lesson. While the students did have the opportunity to search the web by touching the board, I feel the same could have been done using a projector connected to a keyboard and mouse. I do, however, feel the Smart Board is a very useful piece of technology when used in a more beneficial way. I feel in this situation it was not necessary.

Technology in the classroom

I have used technology in many of my classes, but one instance that really sticks out to me was in a physical science course here at Towson. I cannot remember the exact details of what we were doing, but it had to do with molecule collision in relation to temperature. At first, the instructor explained what physically happened, and tried to explain it to us through lecture. Afterward, each group was given a laptop to recreate this experiment through a simulator. This allowed us to see the concept from a visual perspective, and also allowed us to control the variables througout the experiment. I thought this was a great way to reinforce what we had learned in the lecture because it gave us ownership over the concept since we could control it for ourselves. Since it would be impossible for us to physically view the molecules, using a simulator was extremely helpful in our understanding.

All throughout grade school and during my three years at towson I have used technology in many of my classes. During grade school, mostly in science classes, my teachers provided us with powerpoints as their source of notes. I also became very familiar with using powerpoints myself to complete projects. Throughout college I have gotten the opportunity to become familiar with using blackboard. I have used blackboard in many of my classes as a source of turning in assignments and communicating with my class members. The most recent class I have used blackboard as a source of communication was in my African American Literature class that I took second semester sophomore year. This class was 50% in class and 50% online. Every week we had to read a piece of literature and post our reactions on blackboard. After we posted, we had to respond to at least 4-5 other member's posts in the class. I really liked having 50% of the class online because to me it was much more efficient then listening to lectures twice a week. I think having us use blackboard was good because knowing that I had to post every week encouraged me to constantly read and complete my homework. A more recent class where I used technology a lot was in my ELED 320 class. In this class we had many grammar presentations to complete in which powerpoint was an option to use. I found that powerpoint helped a lot because my group members and I got to teach my class, for example Grammar in Context, in a clear and understandable way. Everything we put on the slides we discussed more thoroughly to make sure that my class members understood it. I like using powerpoint for presentations and I definitely like when professors use it as well.

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.

Throughout my learning experience, I have been exposed to many uses of technology. My senior year in high school, in my Math Pre-Calculus classroom, we were introduced to the SmartBoards. All year we had been using powerpoint, and the overhead projector. Around February, our classroom had a smartboard installed. As a student, it seemed like so much fun to use the markers on the board to click on things on the computer. My teacher would give us lessons and notes on the smartboard, and she could do such cool things with images and even the words on the microsfot word pages that she had her notes designed on. THe one thing I did notice, was how much trouble the teacher had getting accustomed to the new smartboard. At first, she did very basic things with it. She would make notes on Microsoft word, project them on to the smart board, and use the different colored markers to give examples, make images, and highlight what was important. As the teacher, she had to spend the extra time after school learning how to adjust her classroom to incorporate this smartboard. I am sure that there was many other cool and educational things my teacher could have done with the smartboard, that she was not even aware of at the time. All I remember my teacher saying was how much she missed the over head transparencies and powerpoint, because she knew how to use those. I would love to go back into that high school classroom today and see what amazing things they must be using that smartboard for now. Three years later, I'm sure the smartboard in that classroom can do many things with images, equations, and numbers for math lessons. Although at first it seemed to be trouble-some, it gave me a positive educational experience in my pre-calculus math classroom. I think that the use of technology is very beneficial in the every day classroom. It enables the minds of students more and more. Looking at a powerpoint presentation gets to be very boring, but when the teacher can play around and add things (like on the smartboard) to the powerpoint, the lesson becomes interactive. I can remember everybody in my senior year pre calculus class listening and paying attention, so we could all get our chance to use the silly little interactive markers on the board. Using technology makes students interested in the lesson because it usually makes things less boring! Technology gives the students a chance to become interactive with the lesson, and interested to pay attention. I hope that when I become a teacher I am given the chance to work with up to date technology. This past semester, working at a sturggling Baltimore City elementary school, I learned how technology can be hard to work with at times. My teacher always used the ELMO overhead projector, and many times it did not work correctly, and/or would distort the images and words. Right away the students would start fooling around, because they saw how caught up the teacher would be with having the projector work correctly. Even though sometimes technology can mess up, I beleive that the use of technology is a key ingredient when establishing an effective classroom. I have learned through it, and I hope my future students can learn through it at as well.

Integration of Technology in My Classroom

Technology has been a major part of many of my classrooms. After thinking back to many of those experiences I think that one experience where technology made the most impact on my learning was in a college history course that dealt with U.S. history from 1912 to about 1980s. Past history courses from high school, never really excited me or made me want to learn. I feel the reason for this was a lot of my learning was text book based and I also did a lot of teaching myself the material for the course from the textbook and from the Internet. Technology was used in the high school history course but it mostly was over heads on a projector that the teacher would go over word for word and have the students take notes. However, once I enrolled in the U.S. history course at Towson my thought on History changed forever. The class was made up of college students from all different majors and there were about 35-40 students in the class. The professor integrated many different types of technology into his classroom teaching. The different types of technology included PowerPoint presentations, video clips from YouTube, video clips from actual movies, podcast, recordings of famous (historical) people talking and famous speeches, and pictures of different art from the time period we were studying. The way that the professor taught was very different than I was used to, because I was enthralled with the material and so fascinated, and I couldn't help but pay attention. His lessons never had the students staring at one same type of media for a long period of time. For example, for a lesson he would have a PowerPoint set up and within the PowerPoint he set up links that would take the class to a podcast, or a video clip, or he would show us part of a movie, or take us to an art gallery online. He changed my thoughts on just a plain PowerPoint presentation with just words, and opened my thoughts to PowerPoint that include links, and sounds, and many pictures. What my professor did with the technology in the classroom allowed me to really relate to the material and internalize the information because I was able to create memories based on the technology used that day. Because I was able to internalize all the information from the course I feel that all the effort and time that the professor put into his lessons was well worth it for the students, at least I know it was for me. I don't feel that I would have done as well as I did in the course if so many different technologies were not used.

The Integration of Technology into a Classroom

I feel that technology is an important tool that can enhance students’ learning and understanding of a new concept. For as long as I can remember, technology has been used in some way in all of my classroom experiences. From elementary to high school, the most used technologies were overhead projectors, televisions, computers and possibly PowerPoint. Throughout my college experience, the most widely used technology has been PowerPoint, and I’ve only recently been introduced to the Elmo. However, there is only one real experience that I will always remember where a professor’s use of technology completely changed my view on history.
About a year ago, I had to take a winter cram course on colonial history, which was a requirement for my A.A.T. degree. Before taking this class, I really hated the idea of history. I didn’t understand any of it, nor did I care to understand it. This ignorance was the result of past teachers and professors who succeeded in making history seem boring and confusing with their monotone and unorganized lectures. Very little technology was used and if it was used, it was used inappropriately (i.e. playing videos recorded from the history channel for an entire class). Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to my 2 week long cram course, with a 4 hour history lesson every day. Fortunately, to my surprise, this professor found a new, intriguing way of using technology to enhance his history lectures. Every day, our class of about 30 would come into class and sit in our seats, all facing the front of the classroom. The professor would lecture the entire class using PowerPoint to enhance his lecture. However, the difference between how this professor used PowerPoint compared to how other professors use PowerPoint is that he used it for visual purposes only. There were no notes on his PowerPoints; only pictures. This professor would use his own notes to lecture from, along with the many MANY pictures that he had compiled into a PowerPoint. This technique really worked for me because usually when professors provide notes on a PowerPoint, I get compulsive and have to write down every word verbatim, causing me to miss anything that the professor is lecturing. Therefore, by not providing any notes, I was forced to actively listen and only write down the information that I felt was important to know for the test, which would make sense to me when studying the notes later since they were in my own words, and not the professor’s. Also, considering that I’m a visual learner, using pictures really enhanced my understanding of history. In the past, history teachers and professors have used a lecture only approach, which obviously has been ineffective in my case. By adding the use of visuals, I was able to create a mental image of the parts of history that were taught. This really helped me to remember the information and allow me to recall the information when it came to his written tests. Not only that, but for once I was able to find myself having intelligent conversations with friends and family about history because of my new found understanding of it. I can’t possibly put into words the impact this professor made on my views of history by his unique use of technology, but I can say that if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have an appreciation for the past, which is actually really important because history is what shaped the country we know as America, today.