Week 12: Using Technology in the classroom

Since we're creating a lesson plan this week and last week we continued to talk about virtual schooling and introduced assistive technology, I figured this week I would blog about using technology in the classroom in general. I feel somewhat overwhelmed at times when I think about all of the uses of technology in the classroom. At the same time, it's great to think about all of the resources I have at my fingertips because of the available technology in the classroom. I think the hardest part of using technology in the classroom is picking and choosing what technology to use and when to use it. I think it's also important to not overuse technology in the classroom. While students love using new and different things, I think it can become overwhelming to have too many projects using technology at once for students. I also think that the novelty may wear off very quickly if teachers don't plan the use of technology in their classrooms very carefully and explicitly. One of my biggest fears in using technology as a teacher is technology failure. I would hate for my students to lose any work that they may be doing because technology fails or for them to not be able to access their work or use if for the designated purposes because of broken equipment or loss of information. Teachers have been teaching without technology for many, many years. It is important to remember this and balance out lessons and learning with all the other various methods and resources we have to teach our students.
As for assistive technology, I'm impressed by what is available for students with disabilities. The one thing I worry about at this point with assistive technology is learning how to use it as a teacher and working with it and the student. Once again, if this type of technology stops working, it could be very detrimental to the student. I recognize that their are back-ups available and that this type of technology can be fixed, I think I'm just thinking about how much of a pain it would be at the time and the amount of frustration that can be caused by technology.