Technology, an educational tool

Well, I guess you could say that coming back to uni from almost 4 months of break doing the odd charity work and working part time can be pretty overwhelming. I mean first day back and we students have already been swamped with looming assessments, groups have been made and not to mention the weight of books that will eventually cause me to have back pain early in life. But enough ranting and on to more productive things...


Professional experience 3 - Integrating learning technologies: one of my assignments is jump on the social media bandwagon and create my own blog, something I've never done before.  The aim is to blog about the experiences and observations you've made in class, reflect on your own learning and to really just embrace the era of technology that we have so rapidly been moving in. I can't help but wonder what new technologies will greet me tomorrow?


In my experiences from Pracs 1 and 2, I am not the only one struggling to keep up with the fast paced world out there. Many teachers argue that going to computer labs is time consuming, seeing as kindergarten do take a good 15 to 20 minutes logging in and then the next 10 minutes are spent on opening a folder. Smart boards have failed to turn on and smart board pens have run out of batteries which is when the ICT man/woman is in big demand to quickly fix the problem.


I realise that technology is no longer 'out there' but right here and right now. Almost every school and/or classroom has internet access, computers, Smart boards, some school even have tablet rooms, not to mention various other technologies such as beebots, projectors, digital cameras and laptops. These are all examples of the current technologies replacing the ones I used to encounter when I was a primary school student. In the 90's, we had over head projectors, VHS players, floppy disks, tapes and box like computers.


Class and this week's reading has taught me that technology should not be overwhelming, it should not be complicated and it should not replace good teaching and pedagogy. Instead it should be used as a tool to enhance teaching and learning, a space for creativity and endless possibilities. I do believe that technology does play an important role in any classroom. Therefore it is important that teachers are up to date with the latest concepts and ideas, are open to new technological experiences and most importantly; they should be prepared. Well planned and prepared lessons should aim to incorporate new learning experiences that could include videos, interactive games and problems or surfing the net for research, keeping in mind that technology does fail sometimes, things do go wrong but you always have to be equipped with charging on with the lesson until things are fixed. It is important that technologies are tools for helping students learn and experience things in new ways.



Roblyer, M (2006). Teaching with instructional software. In M. Roblyer (Ed). Integrating educational technology into teaching. (4th ed.). Merrill. Prentice Hall. Columbus, Ohio. Chapter 3.