Saturday, May 2, 2009

Response To Salon #10


 



I participated in a salon discussion about the article written by Colleen Swan and David Edyburn entitled, Social Justice: Choice or Necessity." This article was about whether the use of technology in the classroom should be a school wide initiative or a teacher's personal choice. The article goes on to explain that student access to technology is not enough for today's students. Students must also be able to use technology to communicate, solve problems, represent data and share their knowledge. During the salon we also discussed the inequities in technology that many schools still face. We felt that many schools were not equipped with sufficient technology, or the technology that they have is old, slow, or did not function properly. s an educator for more than 14 years, I have seen the improvement in the way schools are both acquiring and utilizing technology, but I fear we are stll very far from our goal. Although we are beginning to get more technology equipment into the hands of our students, our teachers are not being trained on how to incorporate technology into their curriculum. Many teachers are simply showing power point presentations or asking students to type their reports on the computer after hand-writing them on paper. Students are not, for the most part, being asked to utilize the technology on their own. In my opinion students should be shown how to responsible use an application and then be required to use it to respond, defend, create, demonstrate, or share their knowledge. However, before this can happen, school districts, teachers, and parents have to be in agreement. In order to close this digital divde between the"haves" and "have-nots", technology must be available to all students, used regularly, used in a meaningful way, monitored by both school and parents, and utilized to enhance learning. Teachers must consider how they can infuse technology into their curriculum to enhance their students learning. We as educators have to keep in mind the future of our students. We must prepare them for their future, not our past. Parents, teachers and educators are all responsible for the education of our nation's children. We do not want our students be be at a disadvantage, we must provide all students with the technological tools necessary to compete in a global world.

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