Technology in the Classroom

I think the use of technology in the classroom can be very effective. I personally feel like I learn more when different things are integrated into the class, other than the plain old lecture.

Throughout my academic career I rarely used technology in the classroom, but this all change when I entered college. In most of my courses have or are using some form of technology. Some have used technology more than others, but most have. I think one of my favorite tech experiences was in my Creative Writing class.

When I first signed up for the class I didn't think I would really like because it was not something I was interested in. It was the kind of class you take just because you need to. Anyway, we were assigned to write poems and short stories throughout the semester. We were expected to post our writings on the class page and have the other students read and critique them. At first I was a little afraid of doing this because I didn't want others to see my work, it was something I was uncomfortable with. After the first couple of classes I began to get used to it and I actually felt like posting our writings was a real benefit not only for us, but for the flow of the class as well. Since everyone would have already read the posted works, we could come in and start to talk about them. We didn't have to wait for everyone to read their work. Another assignment we had in the class was to make a digital story. I forget the actual program we used, whether it was movie maker or something like it, but I enjoyed the process. It was a form of technology that I had never used before. Because of all the technologies we used I learned a lot. The students in the class all seemed to benefit from the use of technology.

We basically helped to teach each other. We could contact the other students when we were having problems with the technology use. Our teacher was there to help us, but we really graded each other and commented on each others work. Without the use of the computer, I do not think we would have been able to do this.

I thought that this was a great way to integrate technology into the course. It was relied on heavily, but we also relied on human interaction. I think this was the right way to learn through the technology. I think that technology is a great source of learning, but I also think that it is necessary to have the human interaction. I think my learning in the course was dramatically improve because we had the tools necessary to complete the goals of the course.