ch 2 response

Blog Response - P. 22 in Cennamo, Ross and Ertmer.

"Reflect on your own experiences using technology for learning. What technologies were used when you were a student and how were they used? How were technology-related skills taught to you as a student? What was emphasized? What skills and knowledge to you already possess to help you meet the challenges of effectively integrating technology into instruction. How did you learn those skills?"

The earliest memory I have about technology in the school setting is going to computer class in elementary school for a special. We went there once a week to use the lab and become familiar with the computers. Usually we would go into the lab with a task from our teacher, like typing a story that we had written, or typing poetry. From what I can remember in elementary, the tasks that we did in the computer lab were not too in depth or rigorous. I think they were more in place to get us used to dealing with technology and to get us acquainted with some of the basic program on the computers at school.

Once we got to Jr. High, it was a totally different story. My 7^th grade year was the first year that the laptops were issued by the state to students. Now, the laptops were taking over what seemed to be all the classrooms. I feel like some teachers/subjects really tried to stretch the use of the laptops and technology, when it would have been more useful to do lessons and assignments the traditional way of teaching. On the same hand, we had teachers who didn’t make use of the laptops at all in the classroom setting. In these cases, the laptops were just a hassle to carry class to class.

The stuff that was taught to us as students was pretty much done by the teachers in the classroom. I can remember some of the teachers not knowing too much about what they were trying to teach us. One teacher I had frequently gave up, and had us put the laptops away because a student would ask a question regarding the laptops that he did not know and it made him mad. From the usage in Jr. High, the laptops were primarily used for word processing and for looking up information on the Internet for projects. I can remember doing a research project in my Spanish class in 8^th grade where we looked up information and played Spanish music from the Internet.

Now that I am in college, a lot of my computer usage is limited to word processing or looking up things on the Internet. I want to be able to learn more about computers and technology in general because I know it will only benefit me if I am able to integrate technology into my classroom when I am a teacher. I feel like the more I know about technology, the better off I will be because it seems that people are starting to use it more and more not only in schools, but in society.