Assignment (con't)

I was very impressed to learn that many teachers had such positive attitudes when it came to using techonology in their classroom and "outside of the classroom walls." Of course we as teachers want to give our students as much research material as we can so they can learn and expand their minds as much as possible, but I was expecting some teachers to be hesitant about using technology as oppossed to chalk and blackboard.

I was fascinated by the fact that teachers could take attendence without actually having to take attendence! The books with the students names and little box to check off that they are in class is gone! The delany cards that were so small you could hardley read anything written on them - gone! So many teachers are truly loving this advanced and technology and how couldn't they? Many of them said it is more organized, less time consuming, the students love it, and it just makes more sense. What I also really enjoyed was the fact that student's would no longer be able to come up with excuses as to why they didn't complete their work. As the one teacher said, "It was on the blog", end of story! Many teachers are becoming accustomed to all of the technology they are capable of using in their classrooms and they all seem to have very positive attitudes about it!

I think the most important question that ELA teachers are faced with today, is how to use all of this technology when many school settings are not adopting all of its needs quickly enough. Still today, many teachers are very comfortable with using paper, pencils, erasers, and chalk. Unfortunatly, there are teachers that are willing to learn and adapt to technology based classroom, but the schools do not have the money or tools to provide for such material. In all of the assigned readings we had this week, each one said that the younger generations are soaring past us and I am pretty sure we all know that we really need to catch up.

I found the "Priority of Education Questions" very interesting. How can we seriously expect students to really learrn and understand the material we are presenthing them if we are so focused on how well they are learning? It does not matter how well they are learning the material, what matters is WHAT they should be learning. This issue is very close to home for me because I am horrible at math. (seriously, there is no hope) Throughout high school, I had numerous tutors and help from my teachers that always told me, "It doesn't matter how you get the answer, as long as you have a way to get it and you understand it." The focus in classrooms today should not be how well our students are learning, but that they are understanding the material and we are teaching them the correct subjects.