Week 7: Tech in classroom

It's a grey area for how far teachers should go to match the technology their students use on a daily basis. You have to remember that there are underprivilaged students that do not have access to the latest and greatest that others do. Also for a teacher to try and keep up with all these new gadgets and how to use them would take more time and energy away from what is still the most important, learning. However to completely banish technology from the classroom today is almost silly; there are helpful tools with powerpoint and the internet and Microsoft Word.

I would not allow online chats or I.M. in my classroom. You can not monitor every conversation 25 students are having at one time. That is something for students to do on their own time, when there in my classroom, that's my time to teach them, not try to fight with technology for their attention.

I suppose that if a student were physically incapable of coming to a classroom then text-based learning would be better than not learning at all. However the comfort of having the instructor present to personally ask questions seems always more profitable for the student.

Again, it depends on the student. If they are physically incapable of coming to class than this would be a great alternative, as far as being passive, it would seem that both parties involved would have to be serious about it for it to work.

I do not support videogames as a positive learning tool. Even though companies have developed these leapfrog and other videogames that are suppose to help learning; all it does is set up parents and their children for fighting in the future. Sure they may be helpful as a child is learning numbers and ABC's, but once their older and teens, trying to take that videogame away when all there playing are nasty, violent games, is a battle. Kids need to learn from early on, that they are not going to go to school and play videogames so don't teach them to learn from a videogame. And though my son is only a baby, he will not play videogames everyday. They will be a privilage and I hope he will be involved in more positive activities that develop positive social skills and self-confidence; which videogames do not.