My Experience With Technology.

When it comes to technology I would categorize myself as "average." I own a Macbook Pro and have, after about a year, figured out how to do pretty much everything on it. I also own my first smartphone, the iPhone 4s, and have figured out that pretty well too. On the subject of blogging this actually isn't the first blog that I have been involved with. I am also on a blogging site called Tumblr and have found that it gives much more room for exploration and customization than Facebook or any other social networking site. I use it to post original writings, workout logs, pictures, and any other entertaining things that I can find while exploring the site. I find this to be a pretty good resource to find others that share my interests in writing, music, humor, and being able to share all of this with others.
My opinion about technology in the classroom is that it is a wonderful resource. Until I began at Montclair State in 2008 the exposure to technology in school was very limited. The amount of information that can be found through the library's database of scholarly articles and online books is amazing and has proved invaluable when writing my countless term papers over the last four years. It is  phenomenal how information can be recalled, from the classroom, at the drop of a hat and applied to the current lesson. The advantages of technology in the classroom also come with the downsides of this technology. Especially when it comes to college courses there often seems to be more time being spent on Facebook or playing games then taking notes or locating information that could prove useful to the lesson that is being taught. I tried taking notes on my computer when I arrived in college but in the end it just proved to be too big of a distraction for me. It seems that I will always be a pen and paper kind of person when it comes to taking notes. In short, I believe that technology needs to be truly integrated into the classroom but I don't believe that technology should become the classroom. There is still value in reading books on paper and being able to write a quick note in the margin or being able to connect
related points in your notebook by drawing an arrow across the page.
A couple things really struck me about the article and the video that we were assigned to watch for this week. I was particularly impressed with the way that the teachers weren't only using the technology to teach lessons straight from the curriculum but they were also using the technology to get students to learn about their cultures. This idea that teachers shouldn't just teach students about a certain book or subject matter but should teach students how to go home and continue to learn on their own is essential to the growth of the education system. The lessons that the teacher taught about "Amistad" were greatly enhanced by the fact that students could dig deeper by doing extra research.
When I was tutoring during my undergraduate classes I developed a big belief that students should always be helping other students. Sometimes a student is too ashamed or intimidated to ask for help from an instructor but would feel comfortable voicing problems with another student. The GenYES program impressed me to no end because I feel that it would solve so many of the problems that I encountered throughout my education. By having students work with teachers and having the teaching and learning go both ways, students begin to feel more as equals. The intimidation factor will begin to melt away and an open dialogue can ensue. The younger generations are learning about technology much faster than the older ones and in order for teachers to become comfortable enough with this technology to utilize it effectively in the classroom there is nobody better to turn to than the students.
Technology integration is an important part of education today because the times are changing faster than most of us can. Technology can keep us up to date on the newest strategies, information, and anything else we could possibly need to bring into our classrooms. One of the last lines of "Learning to Change - Change to Learn" really made me think about the future of the education system. At around the 5:00 mark of the video one of the speakers remarks that it is the "death of education but the dawn of learning." It is a very true statement and it means that we can't rely on the outdated textbooks and hundred year old strategies in order to teach students and keep up with the rate that the world is changing. It is time to learn how to learn again and the only way to effectively do that is to successfully bring technology into today's classrooms.