Tiffany Harrington's Website

Summary:

I found this article to be very interesting.  This being my second year, I have not really put a lot of thought as to what goes into integrating technology into the classroom.  While reading the article the authors discussed the fact that we need to understand the history of technology within the schools to understand the need for its advancement.  From the beginning computers were simply used for administrators.  During the second phase of integrating technology teachers, students, and administrators were able to use technology, and the last phase was the use of the Internet.  The writers of this article discussed an experiment where a suburban middle school allowed 130 students to use handheld computers.  They found some very interesting observations, they found that there was not a need for installing wires within the school, no need for labs, which allowed more space for instructional classrooms, and the cost and time for photocopying decreased due to the use of a paperless system.  The thing that I felt was the most interesting was what the authors felt was the main reason as to why technology was not being integrated was that   the authors felt that it was the responsibility of the administrators.  The administrators expressed their feelings that it was too much work to train the teachers and staff.  They are stuck in their ways and feel that the paper and pencil method works just fine so why should it be changed.  They discussed the fact that if administrators’ attitude does not change about training their staff, than technology will be hard to integrate.  Administrators have now taken the attitude that “some” is better than “none” when it comes to technology being integrated into schools.

Personal Reaction:

I found this article very interesting and I think that schools are missing the huge sign that technology is the key to today’s education.  Being around children you can see that they take a great interest in technology with the new I-Pods and video games.  I think that if kids can sit at home and come up with very advanced strategies to get through their favorite video game than why would we not use technology in education.  I think that there are some students that would excel if you approached education in way that was interesting to them.  I have seen that many of my students get bored because pencil and paper is not as interesting as sitting on the computer with all the advancements in technology.  I believe that if new concepts were introduced we could catch the students that are falling before it is too late.  I agreed with the authors of this article that the administrators are the ones at fault.  My principal is very into technology for himself.  He uses it to stay organized, but he does not want to take the time to spill the useful information over to his staff.  Although not everyone will embrace the idea, I think that technology is the key to education.  Video and computer games are the new fad of kids so why are we just ignoring that these children are very smart, just not very interested in the classroom.  I love reading about technology and how much of an impact it has on students, but it always makes me wonder why are people not paying attention.  I know that there is a cost factor, but if the end result is better educated children than I do not think that any cost is too high!