technology+beleifs

Amy Johnson Jessica Iverson Carly Raitt Technology belief’s discussion Rethinking Education: My article was basically talking about whether it is better to have technology while learning or not. It talked a lot about how when you do not have technology then you have to learn for that you will eventually need. With technology it said you can just learn immediately when you need it right then. The article had a lot of different examples of which of these were better, and left it open ended for you to decide. Technology for students with disabilities: There are lots of different kinds of technology but a lot of the disabled students can’t use them all. For example there was a girl that had cerebral palsy that couldn’t really type but the teacher required all the students to type up their papers, so she has to have someone else type the papers for her and it is very frustrating. Schools are starting to put captions up on movies so that deaf people can read along and not just stare at an interpreter. Schools embrace the ipad: Some schools are replacing textbooks with ipads. All ages are using them. They use them a lot for math because you have a lot of apps that you can download that they can interact with the math and perhaps learn better. There is a big debate whether this is distracting or whether it can help them because of all the technology they can hold a lot of information. They also think that it can save them money because they don’t always have to print paper. Questions:
 * 1) We think that computer technology should be used to an extent. Too much computer time is distracting, but avoiding it all together is not helpful either.
 * 2) Gives students a visual, easily track assignments and progress, and prepares them for using technology in the future.
 * 3) It can be very distracting, taking away from a more personal teacher student relationship; teacher can spend a lot of time helping the computer illiterate. Can become reliant on it.
 * 4) Becoming acquainted with new programs, mal functions like not saving the paper correctly or not printing, it can get lost in email. Crashes.
 * 5) Practice using the program before using it in class so that you know what you are doing. Keep a flash drive or some sort of back up so you don’t lose things on a computer.

Technology can be very useful in the classroom, but finding a balance seems to be the most important thing when dealing with technology.