Technology Inquiry Project

I had an interesting time taking a close look at how I have used technology both in my own personal life and in my work at my placement at Lynnwood Elementary the past quarter, it really got me thinking about technology as a tool, how I have used it, how it can be used, and what I can do in the future. My technology use in my own personal life does not require any improvement, I use it for my own ends and I have no reason to change it, if a good reason arises of course I will be changing it, but I try not to change simply because the times are changing. At my placement, technology is used a tasteful amount I would say. It is used often as a good tool for the students, but it is not so much as to be a distraction from everything else. For example, in my classroom there is one computer for every two students, which works just fine for us because we very rarely have it at a given time that more than half the class is using a computer. On the rare occasion that every child needs a computer, we borrow some from the classroom next door, and if they ever need more, which is more often the case, they come and take some computers from us. My CT and the teacher in the next door class have an understanding around this which is mutually beneficial and as of yet there have not been any problems. The students use the computers for a variety of purposes. The one way computers are used on an almost daily basis is that every day during our reading rotations, some students get to practice their typing on a program called “All The Right Type.” They quite enjoy this, but sometimes I think that they get so invested in the game like structure of the program they don’t want to do anything else during their allotted read time. Additionally, students may ask permission to use the computers to read an e-book on them. This allows some students to read books that we do not have in class. I have noticed though that since we started allowing this, students will want to read an e-book even when we have a paper copy of the book in class. One kid explicitly told me that he does not want to read an actual book because he can read an e-book. I do not understand this, and I am also not sure how I feel about it. It does get some students reading, but I do not want my students to see computers as bringers of enjoyment and books as harbingers of boredom. My short term goal is to give some more thoughts about how we do e-books in class. Also some students try to get away with playing games instead of reading. I think that I want to make a rule that in order to use a computer for an e-book, a student must give me a written reason why they want to do it, and I will be very selective in how I give these rights. My long term goal over many years would be to get a Smart Board, as I have seen teachers use these to great effect. I was skeptical of these at first but now that I have seen them used well I think it would be a real benefit for me to practice on them and gain skills at using them to their greatest abilities, as opposed to a glorified whiteboard.