Week Six

Generation IM

In the future, my classroom full of students will look nothing like the classroom of yesterday. Not only has the curriculum changed but the students have too. The students that I will be teaching come from a generation centered around technology; You would be hard pressed to find a seventh grader who doesn't own their own iPod or smart phone. Scholastic.com quotes David Williamson Shaffer from his book, How Computer Games Help Children Learn, saying, "we need to use technology in compelling and progressive ways," and "if we fail to do so, kids are going to look at what's going on in school and see that it is irrelevant." Our students will know if the technology we are using is being uses properly and effectively. One of the problems that teachers have facing them, is that they don't have enough resources to learn how to use the technology effectively and properly. The article gives some great examples of barriers teachers are faced with: 

1) a lack of quality professional development for teachers; 
2) a lack of time to explore, apply, and reflect with colleagues on the challenges and potentials of integrating any type of technology into the classroom culture; and 
3) limited administrative support about how to use technology effectively to empower learners.

This class has taught me that the students I will potentially be teaching, come from a generation that is nothing like mine. They think differently then I do, learn differently, and use technology differently. I want to become a teacher who effectively integrates technology into my classroom.

Some great ways that technology can be integrated into a science lesson, would be with the use of a blog and of Google Earth. When in a science class, no one likes to listen to a teacher lecture or read a textbook. Instead, they want to be doing something hands on and that is relevant to their lives. The blog is a great idea for students to post science experiments: pictures, hypothesis, lists of tools, procedures and conclusion.

Google Earth provides science students with an amazing visual and practical example of the concepts they are learning. 50 years ago, pictures of the Earth were new and exciting and today we have a program that lets students explore the cosmos and planet from the safety of the classroom! Whether students are learning about latitude and longitude, or reading the journals of Lewis and Clark, programs like Google Earth can take the students learning to a whole new level.