Technology in the Classroom!

As a future teacher in the 21st Century, technology has become a big part of people's lives.  As an educator I want to be able to use technology to enhance student learning.  By allowing students to use technology, it gives them many more opportunities to expand their knowledge.  Effective technology integration is achieved when the use of technology is routine, and when the technology supports curriculum goals.


In a classroom of elementary students, using technology will always be a safe thing.  All websites visited will be pertinent to grade level curriculum I wish to teach.  All activity will be monitored, and privileges will be taken away from those who abuse the trust I give.

Here are some helpful links I found about technology!

10 Reasons Today's Students Need Technology in the Classroom.

How to Teach Internet Safety to Younger Elementary Students


Here are some examples of technology I have used in my student teaching experiences:

As a student living in the 21^st century, technology takes up a big portion of my life.  As a future educator, technology will continue to take over the classroom and be a big part of teaching future minds.  As a student teacher I used technology a lot during my 15 week, student teaching experience.  In my first session I used technology daily.  During math, I would always use the online version of the textbook to project for my students.  Using the document camera was hard because I always had to move the book around and could never fit everything I wanted to in one frame.  Using the online textbook worked really well because it made the page bigger for my students as well as helped me as I did the work with them.  It allowed me to use the white board to easily show work, and erase when needed.  I also used the many teaching videos that were available to help teach the content to the students as well.  Math wasn’t the only place I used technology.  During Social Studies when we would do Time For Kids we would use the online version of the magazine.  This online version could have someone read the text for you, read the important words, and even have games at the end.  It had videos that could be shown to students, and this really helped students to understand the story from the magazine. 

            In my second placement I used technology just as much.  Rachel Sullivan used technology quite a bit, but I showed her some new ways to use it.  One of these ways was that Rachel didn’t know that there was another video she could show to teach the content to the kids.  It was shorter, and usually a lot easier to understand.  She also didn’t know that there was an online version of the student’s textbook to use to project.  The online version of the textbook wasn’t used very long by me, as students preferred when I used the book under the document camera and still used the white board to do the work with them.  Rachel and I also used the document camera in the morning to go over seat work with the kids.  We always did it on the board with them, because morning seat work was always a math and language paper.  Doing it on the board with the students allowed them to see the correct answers.

            In both placements I used GoNoodle with my kids quite a bit!  Kids always need a chance to have a brain break and to get their bodies moving after a long stretch of sitting in the classroom.  My students loved to dance and stretch around.  My third graders loved it the most, and they were always asking to do Zumba, and do another dance, and then another.  Kids really benefited from this technology use because it would get them up and morning. 

            Another use of technology I did was to enter math grades into the online grading system.  I didn’t get the opportunity to do this is my first placement, so I was thrilled when Rachel asked me to do it for both of the math assessments I gave.  I had to go into the online grade book and enter how each student did for each standard the math assessment assessed. 

            During my Lego unit, students and myself had to use technology to program the robot, as well as for me to show the problem the Lego characters were having with the robot.  The Lego program started the activity for the students to continue on problem solving with the worksheets they were given. 

            As a student teacher I truly feel as though I made using technology a priority.  In an ever changing world, technology will always be changing and be helping students, so I believe it’s important to allow students the chance to use this technology to help them better their learning.