Experiences With Technology & Education

   Technology has been present in my learning environment from the very beginning. I can remember as far back to Wheeler Avenue, my elementary school. When we used tape recorders for reading circles, cd players for foreign language , and of course computers. Back then there were small keyboard and typing classes to train us for our future. Who knew those little classes would be so beneficial to us later on. In my final year at Wheeler our teachers had us do a research assignment which was then to be typed up and handed in for a final grade. This was a huge turning point in my school because; in the past the final papers were to be written out. Which proved that people knew that technology knew was going to be important in our futures.                                                                                       
     As we grew older, technology became so much more complex. Towards the beginning of the middle school, some classes hand online assignments some in the classroom and some at home. Other classes would use computers for researching. A lot of teachers used the blackboard; a while after that some of the classrooms in my school upgraded to white dry erase boards. However, some lucky teachers (usually the accelerated classes) used an overhead projector to teach their lesson. This was a machine with a bright light that used a type of dry erase paper that enlarged and displayed usually on a plain white wall or screen. This was a fun and new entertaining way to get kids involved in my class.     Later on in my high school years, technology had major break troughs. There were the televisions in every classroom, slide shows used for lessons, computers used for assignments, smart boards, and the most controversial cell phones. I am sure we had more technology but the rest escape me at this moment.  At my old school Central High School, we had televisions in every classroom. They served a few purposes; they were used to display our daily announcements in the beginning and end of the week. They were also there for easy accessibility for the teacher to display information from their computer to the class. The last purpose was instead of requesting for “the cart” which contained a television, a vcr, and a dvd player all on a rolling cart. This was what ever teacher wanted/needed to display a movie in class and it needed to be reserved a head of time. So to end the madness of “the cart” the school sold the fancy new tvs and purchased average tvs for every teacher.
  There were two types of computers, the desktop computers and the rented laptops that needed to be reserved.  My public school was lucky enough to have 3 computer labs, one on each floor. Usually we would go there for website assignments, research assignments, or to type up final papers. Which for the most part was very informative and instructional, however sometimes this could create a bit of chaos. It was probably extremely difficult to monitor all the computers of the students, making sure they were not on any other web sites and carry out a lesson. I have to say my school was pretty smart, they created a code for all the computers so that the students could not go on social networks, like MySpace or non-educational websites. It did not take very long for some kids to find a way to break the code. And then the school modified the code, and the cycle of hacking and improving began.  I think it was around my junior year of high school when my class was introduced to smart boards. Just like everyone’s first reaction, everyone was amazed and astounded by what this new piece of technology could do. My Spanish teacher knew how to use it effectively. She would put daily goals for the class, have the kids interact with it, and always had a new fun way to use the smart board. On the opposing side, I had a English teacher who was teaching for 20+ years and had the access to a smart board in her room, just never used it.  She would tape activities to it, display work on it but never used it for its true purpose. We asked her how come you don’t use the smart board. She replied something along the lines of she has been teaching for so long and has gotten along without technology thus far, and she won’t start using it now. Not all the class rooms had a smart board, so we asked her how come she doesn’t pass on the smart board to another teacher, and she replied with it’s still mine and I have a choice to use it or not. So in her classroom she was neglecting a highly educational piece of technology, out of pure selfishness.    Finally my last piece of evolving technology is cell phones.This topic is so controversial. On one hand it has improved so much over the years and has changed our way of living. On the other hand, it has made us unsocial and lazy society. Cell phones were originally used for easy and safe communication, but these days it is more of a hobby/pass time. I am all for the use of cell phones to a certain point. My high school had a rule of “if I see it or hear it, its mine till the end of the period or the day”. Then a year later, they enforced the rule of cell phones must stay in the lockers during classes, because as technology improved the use of cell phones was abused. As a student back then, I was extremely against this rule. So, I continued to bring my phone to class and hide it. It always infuriated me that we were told we couldn’t carry our phones, but some teachers mid lesson or instead of walking around and helping students would be on their cell phones. However, looking from a future educator prospective I think not having the cell phones available during classes would keep kids on task and more alert. I’m torn between the productive out look as an educator and the safety issue as a former student.    I hope that my former experiences from school and observing can help guide me to know what techniques in technology are helpful to use in my future classroom, as well as learn to modify and improve other techniques that haven’t panned out as planed.