Thoughtful+Analysis

I thoroughly enjoyed Media and Technology. Our class was taught many different ways to incorporate technology in the classroom which will be very useful in today's society that depends so much on technology. We were exposed to blogging, Google Apps such as iGoogle and Google Sketchup, Pennsylvania's Standards Aligned System, video conferencing, podcasting, polling using sites such as survey monkey and poll everywhere, and wikispaces. My favorite lesson was on podcasting. It was a lot of fun to create and I think it is an excellent way to allow students to experience a book. They are also very simple to create, which would make it possible for teachers to create one for their class if they could not find one already made. In my future classroom I would like to use Smart Boards or Promethean Boards, podcasts, videos, video conferencing and Google Maps, and Google Earth. I think these tools help to engage students in lessons and promote active learning. They are also examples of modern technology that students will be able to use outside of the classroom.

I was able to take a good look at my strengths and weaknesses by taking this course. I never thought I was "good" with technology, I knew the basics but I never thought I would be able to create a blog or a podcast. I was not only able to perform the tasks, but I did not find them difficult and I enjoyed them. I would now consider myself more familiar and comfortable with technology after taking this course. That being said, I am not as familiar as I could be with different types of technology that are present today. I think my familiarity with technology doubles as a strength and a weakness. One of my strengths is curiosity and the desire to learn new things. This was very helpful in this class because assignments we had to complete involved using programs I had never used before. However, since I was curious I worked with the programs and learned how to use them so that I could complete the assignments to the best of my ability.

Although I think that technology plays a big role in education today, I think in the future the role will become even bigger. Some newer forms of technology such as Smart Boards are still very expensive and some school districts have not yet been able to provide them for all classroooms. I think that in the future most classrooms will have access to interactive white boards and this will help further the role that technology plays in the classroom. I also think that in a few years the majority of teachers will have had at least some experience with technology in their pre-service education. This factor will most likely increase the use of technology in the classroom because teachers will be more familiar with it and therefore more likely to incorporate technology into their lessons. Today's society relies heavily on technology and I think this will continue into the future. This makes using technology in the classroom essential for students to participate fully in the society they will be living in. I hope that the field of education does not rely soley on technology, because human contact and reading physical books are essential to student learning. Technology is a great benefit, when used with, not instead of books and interaction.