Red Group - Appropriate/Inappropriate Uses of Technology

I truly believe that my attitudes about and experiences with technology in my life have shaped what I consider to be appropriate/inappropriate uses of technology in the classroom. As mentioned in my classroom blog, I have had many run-ins with inappropriate use of technology in the classroom. For me, repetitive misuse of technology makes me not only inclined not to use it in my academic and personal life, but it also makes me weary of using it in my own classroom. For example, based on my own experiences, I believe that PowerPoint is not used in an appropriate manner in the classroom nine times out of ten. Typically, I see PowerPoint being used as a replacement for the teacher. The teacher will display a PowerPoint presentation and then will either just read directly from the notes or just tell the students to write down the information and leave it at that. I never want my personal experiences to take anything away from my students, but I cannot help to think that there will be moments where I will not want to incorporate a particular piece of technology into the lesson because I remember the inappropriate use of the technology when I was in school.

As I stated in my technobiography, I grew up without the luxury of watching television or movies all day. It was instilled in me at a young age that you cannot get anything productive out of sitting in front of a television all day. This mindset stayed with me as I grew older and I always felt uncomfortable watching television or a movie in the classroom because I never felt that it was appropriate to incorporate such technology into a learning environment. I feel very reluctant even now to incorporate television and movies into my own classroom even though I do believe that it can have potential benefits because I just cannot shake that mindset that was instilled in me at such an early age. I really think that my upbringing has and will continue to shape the way in which I view the integration of technology into the classroom. My unique upbringing is such an important part of who I have become today and it can only be expected that some of my upbringing will correlate into how I use technology in my classroom.

I certainly think that there are appropriate ways to integrate different pieces of technology into the classroom, but we as teachers need to recognize how to incorporate this technology in a way that enhances the students' learning. I think that spellcheck and laptops and PowerPoint are all terrific programs that tremendously have the ability to do good in the classroom. There are, however, always going to be pitfalls in every piece of technology. Spellcheck is a great way for students to correct their grammatical errors, but students do not realize that they need to go back and check their work because spellcheck will not detect every single mistake. Laptops allow students to take the learning from the computer lab right to the classroom. Laptops allow students to explore so many different aspects of the world. There is the concern, however, that students will use the laptops in a way that is not appropriate. Students can access websites that are not conducive to the classroom environment and they can easily get off-task. PowerPoint is a great way for students, especially visual learners, to take in information, but very often, teachers try to use PowerPoint as a replacement for actual teaching. It is so easy for teachers to incorporate technology into the curriculum, but it becomes very easy for that technology to be used in an inappropriate manner. I think that for any teacher, their own personal experiences with technology will influence how they incorporate technology into the curriculum for their students.