Middle School Technology

Technology in the classroom is important for teachers, parents, and students alike, because technology use has become a necessary skill for survival in today’s vastly expanding technology driven global economy. Research has shown an increase in student’s success rates when exposed to technology in the classroom. Also technology has opened lines of communication between educators and parents to keep students on track, and help teachers educate better.

The World Wide Web had revitalized education by making it easier, and more efficient to teach. Before the creation of the Internet, the most popular and widely used way of teaching was mainly with books and lectures, limiting the speed and efficiency of information to learn, while also limiting the number of units given in a school year. With the Internet, teachers were able to discover and teach topics easily, leading to quicker lessons and topics as they use the web browser and online sources to benefit the speed of the lessons as well as better the students in different ways to educate. In addition to teachers using the Internet, students also greatly used it to help with homework, to fully understand a topic, to help with projects, and to communicate with their teachers. In a study from Pew Internet & American Life Project over students and their interaction with the

Is technology hurting or helping in middle school classrooms? Over the past few years there has been a huge debate on technology helping vs. hurting in the classroom. I decided to experience for myself how it is used  and if it is making learning easier.

Task 2.0 Apply the basic design elements of a good website to a teacher website using the Apps in the Schoolwires software

The Paradise Valley Unified School District uses Chromebooks throughout all its schools K-12. The IT department has recently created Google Classrooms for all the teachers in the district to help with creating a more 21st century learning environment for students. However, the district is lacking in professional development around technology integration. This training

Huffaker (2005) writes “Some scholars suggest digital fluency will be another prerequisite for sociability, lifelong learning, and employment opportunities. The uses of educational technology have a two-fold advantage; they can promote the types of literacy traditionally encouraged in learning, as well as the digital fluency needed to prosper in the digital age.” After reading this statement, I thought about how children are being exposed to new media & new literacies at a young age. These are skills that will enable them to be valuable assets later in life whether in college or their

During your first year of teaching, the most important people you will have to communicate with are your students. Children of this generation are very technology literate and by using technology in the classroom to communicate with them is a great way to get on their level. One way I plan on doing this is by allowing each student to develop their own website. On the students’ websites they can post their homework, class projects, artwork, and some writing samples. Since most parents work, this gives them the opportunity to go on to their child’s website and see their child’s work such as pictures and samples of class work (Greenspan 2002).

Hamblet argues that students should have assess and learn how to use technology during their time in high school because it could help them adapt faster to the transition from high school to college (56). The high schools that allow students to be hands on with technology give students to be more successful throughout college. In this program we attempt to put work sheets together in order encourage students to use technology. When looking for colleges that they want to attend we assist them by giving them techniques however we attempt to let them navigate the web by themselves so that they could get accustom to researching things without the assistance of anyone else. When students accomplish navigating the web and using technology this component benefits them as well as their family members through their transition to college.

Need to order a pizza, just go online. Need to talk someone, just text them. Want to buy some clothes, just go online. Technology is everywhere, and will only become more and more prominent. In Doulos, technology is rarely used and the old fashioned way of learning is enforced; handwritten notes and lectures. The computer lab is often over booked and students are unable to use computers when needed. Doulos not being a technology based school has many negative effects on students who are planning to attend college.

As schools promote 21st-century learning, there has been a push for literacies which encourage students to be 21st-century learners. The two overarching literacies, new and digital, has taken over the three R’s literacy, reading, writing, and arithmetic. New Literacies continuously change due to the new technology emerging providing different ways to get information and communicate with others (Leu et al., 2015). In contrast, digital literacy is the ability to use digital tools to access information for understanding and communication (Jose, 2016). New literacies and digital literacies also differ in aspects of use in the classroom. New literacies are the building blocks for digital literacy; which are the skills students need to understand the internet (Maloy, Verock-O'Loughlin, Edwards, & Woolf, 2017). New literacies can be taught without the use of technology because students are learning to locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate information. Teachers can demonstrate these skills using encyclopedias and journal articles to gain a minimalistic comprehension. Once students learn the necessary understanding, teachers can transfer these skills to online which will promote digital literacy; furthermore, digital literacy can only be taught using digital tools. Teachers would teach students how to use computers and the social practices of the new literacies to gain an understanding of the digital literacy (Jose, 2016). Furthermore, digital literacies

effectively is not only a good policy; in some cases it is the law. Multiple links to websites and video presentations provide technology integration strategies that can be used in different content areas. The development of a website containing educational technology projects, resources, and lessons, allowed me to easily compile useful media-based learning information for dissemination with my classroom, colleagues, and other instructors across the globe for enhanced learning.

Digital immigrants, those who are born in the era of writing letters and finding research from literal texts find it difficult to adapt to technology (Small, 2001, p. 4) On the other hand; the digital natives born with technology have incorporated it in their daily routines. Vicky Rideout’s study of the amount of time kids this generation spend on technology shows that children and teenagers ages 8 to 18 are accustomed to technology that that they on average spend twice as much time with screens each year (Richtel, 2014, p. 4). The increased amount of time using technology is able to impact the brains learning manner because it strengthens and tests their mind’s ability to perform activities. New York Times mentions the two surveys done by the Pew Internet Project, and Common Sense Media in San Francisco. In the Common Sense report, for instance, some teachers said that even though the attention span of digital natives may not be as great as digital immigrants but the constant use of technology at home and in class test their brain development and allow them to improve in in subjects like math and science (Richtel, 2014, p. 21). Including technology in digital natives everyday routine helps test the brain skills of students. This is also proven true as the University of Vanderbilt introduces more technology into the classroom, faculty are finding it raises the quality of class discussion and involves students focus and are more skilled in their educational

Education and the way in which we reach our students is ever evolving and changing. In order to become more confident in my 21st Century skills, I must commit my way of learning to that of a digital native. Technology and its intricacies must become so ingrained in my daily routine that it becomes natural. Digital literacy is a continual learning process. Knowing this, I must be willing to adapt and change my way of teaching from 20th Century skills to 21st Century skills.

The learning objective was to ensure that each student completing the course will increase their digital literacy, develop essential computer skills, improve a basic understanding of computing, and increase computer use in their daily lives. In addition, students will increase working knowledge and understanding of standard computer tools and applications all the while increasing working knowledge of basic networking and internet functionality.

We live in the era of technology, and we experience rapid technological progress. Many things around us have become automatic. Specifically, technology has become a part of many fields such as math, science, business and education. Also, kids in this generation are raised with smartphones, tablets, multimedia and many other technologies. Ramamuruthy and Rao (2015) describe students today with the term “digital native” because they are exposed to technology everyday (p.24). Since education plays a significant role in society, it needs to be developed in order to meet the demands of the 21st century. In other words, students need to be educated in a way that keeps up with their daily lives.