December 12th, 2014
Jared Weisberg
I was extremely fortunate enough to have been apart of the technological era when it comes to the school setting. Meaning, I grew up when the Smartboard became the popular new use and seeing a chalkboard made the school seem 30 years older than what it actually was. We see technology changing and advancing everyday around us and the best part is that in can be both beneficial and educational. Technology can be used in the classroom in numerous manners. First and foremost, my favorite part about the Smartboard was the educational games you could play with them. For instance, you can create Test, Quiz, or final review games such as Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, or Deal or No Deal. These games engage the classroom in a fun, educational, and exciting manner. I can personally state this because I've witnessed first hand how useful these games are and how much fun countless students have with them. On the other hand, technology through smart apps has helped us greatly. Whether it's apps being used to help individuals with disabilities or apps used like Quizlet to help us review, we acknowledge and emphasize how vital apps truly are. The main message I'm trying to point out is that technology has increasingly help us improve our educational setting. Despite the fact, it can also hurt us in a few aspects. For example, although technology is very useful and engaging, it may also be a tool used for "the easy way out". Meaning, students may take for granted how thankful they're to be able to use such desirable technological tools and as a result, they don't put as much dedication or hard work into a homework or project because they know how easy they can use technology to find the answers. This would be my main worry as a future educator since I want my students to put a 100% effort into everything they complete. I will have to manage a proper amount of technology use in my classroom so that students don't heavily rely on it as much. As a conclusion, as one can observe, technology has countless benefits but their are always some red flags with so many benefits. In order to maintain proper balance of technology in my future classroom, I will have to carefully organize a proper lesson plan each day that allows the right amount of usage with technological tools. I want students to always be on their toes and ready for any challenges with or without technology. I strongly believe that if I maintain a equal balance of technology use in my future classroom, then I will get the best out of each and everyone of my students. Technology is beautiful but we need to make sure we respect it and use it when it's the right time, we don't want to rely on it so heavily that we become a robot ourselves.
