Using technology as an Instructive Tool

In the world today there are many different ways that technology can be used in the classroom. Teachers can use it as a means to reenforce material that has been covered in a subject area or some can use it as a means to allow students to be able to participate in a classroom. If you were to take a look at a traditional classroom setting, you would see the teacher at the front of the classroom teaching his or her lesson to the class but today we have a greater access to the internet that the traditional classroom setting is almost completely disappearing. Teachers have this amazing opportunity to allow students to explore different ways of accessing information that can reenforce material that they are covering in the classroom. One such technology program or app that the students that I work with use is a program called Xtra Math. Xtra Math is a website that allows students to push up on skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and dividing in the classroom as well as outside of the classroom. I must clarify that I work in a 4th grade classroom setting at an Elementary School in Downers Grove, IL.

When students are using this program they are timed on how many problems they can do in a row without getting any wrong. The program will keep the student on that same skill level until it feels like he or she has mastered the level completely to pass to the next level. Teachers have so much information and material to get through in the day that they cannot always to a chunk of time out in order to review simple math skills such as addition and multiplication. This program is a great tool to use as a warmup to start a math class, as is done with the students I work with, and get their brains to start thinking more rapidly. Another tool that is implemented in the classroom is Notability. Notability is a note taking tool for adults and students alike. With notability students are able to make notes their own by adding pictures and video/voice recordings about what they have been learning about. Notability is also a great tool for presentation and collecting the information you have read in one central area. With notability, we teach our students to take detailed notes using only a few sentences and then add illustrations that will help them remember the information that they have read. For instance, the 4th grade class is learning about the early settlers of North America. They read that the first people to settle in North America were the Native Americans by the means of walking over the Land Bridge. In notability students write down who, where they came from, and why they came as well as use illustrations that can help them remember the information such as a picture of mammoths (their food force), the continent of where they came from as well as the continent of where they were going, and the people. By having the illustration it is reenforcing the information that is also written on the page.

Before I started working in the 4th grade classroom, I worked for 4 years in a self-contained multi needs classroom at a middle school. Many of the students that I worked with did not have the mental and or physical capabilities to write out what they wanted to say. A lot of the time it was because it was harder for them to write down what they were thinking on a piece of paper or type it on a document on a computer. This is were technology became a great tool for those students that I worked with. Students who were having a hard time writing or typing what they wanted to say were able to speak it write to the computer, and the computer would do the work for them. This became a great confidence booster for many students in the classroom. For the longest time they didn't see themselves as being able to participate in a classroom discussion because they didn't know how to write it down or even know how to speak. Technology gave them that voice and allowed them to become more of a confident student and individual. Another aspect of technology that helped the students that I worked with was the use of smart boards and touch screens. Students were then able to use many apps and programs that reenforced material that was being taught to them in the classroom. One program that we used was ABCYA. AbcYa is a website that involves games that allow students to learn put in a way that makes it fun. Students can practice skills from the very basic such as tracing letters to something more complicated such as multiplying numbers. The website also allowed to be used on smart boards and touch screens so those students who had trouble using a keyboard and mouse could just touch the screen for the first answer.

When we use technology as an instructive tool we allow students to widen their knowledge of materials in a way that gets them thinking as well as can be fun. Students are more willing to work on an iPad program for 20 minutes than do a couple of worksheets for the same amount of time. One thing teachers do have to be wary about is making sure that they are using these instructive tools in the correct manner and not as a replacement of them teaching the materials. If technology is used in thee correct manner, we can do amazing things for students and education as a whole.

Positives and Negatives of Technology in Education

Technology has always been one of those things that will be changing rapidly as time goes on. There is no way to stop it, and for many professions it is a life line. In the field of education, technology has been one of those things that individuals either embrace or deny it is even happening. Using technology in the classroom has both positive and negative affects on students.
Technology can be a big help in the classroom. It can be used as an extra tool for students to understand materials that are being covered in the classroom, and also as a reenforcement for more complicated materials. Using technology in the classroom can also assist those who have trouble getting thoughts down on paper, they can speak into a tablet or iPad to express what they are thinking. Technology gives students other tools to use than just writing on a piece of paper. Not only is it a great tool for students, but a great tool for teachers as well. With access to the internet, teachers are able to communicate with other teachers around the country and internationally to get more ideas of how to teach different materials. Teachers are also able to find different materials to use in the classroom whether it be a video or online assessment for the students.
Technology also comes with some negative aspects to it as well. With the use of technology comes the problem of how to regulate it in the classroom. Students are so willing to use it that they can easily get sidetracked on what they are to be working on. Another aspect about technology and having it readily available is how much responsibility do teachers give the students whether it be completing assignment or allowing them to take iPads or chromebooks home (giving students the responsibility of keeping things charged). Though students are usually a reason for having negative points of view on technology, teachers can also an equal negative point of view of technology. Some teachers can abuse this use of technology. Teachers can not use in the right way, meaning that they don't take the time to mind whether it be a video or materials that are relevant to the material that is being learned in class. Teachers can also rely on technology as the only teaching tool, and have no other materials as reenforcement to help students understand more.