The Chicken Chronicles: Volume 1: Issue 2 “The Great Technology Debate”

The leveraging of technology in the schools to meet the needs of students is such a needed topic.  Often in our diverse society, some  educators feel as if  the simple use of an overhead projector or Elmo, installation of a smartboard or the excessive use of PowerPoint lectures is integration of technology onto the classroom.  I would have to disagree with this.  To me, technology integration is when students are able to use various technologies to accomplish authentic tasks and actually create something!

Yes use multimedia presentations to engage the learner by allow them to be creative and actually work to create a few for you .  I promise you will be in for a treat.

I know in many areas, administrators frown upon the use of cell phones in the classroom, however if a teacher has the classroom management skills to demonstrate to student how their “mini pocket computers” can be used for something other than texting or facebooking then I’m all for it!

Think how empowering this could be.  Imagine how this adds a new twist on one to one computing.

From the teacher’s prospective, many educators , even in 2013 are still fearful of using technology because they are afraid to admit that they don’t know something to their student.  Well I am an advocate of being a lifelong learner, which makes me okay with learning new things from my students.  Think about it, they  are our upcoming leaders and we should allow learning to be bi-directional not just a one way street.

Let’s work together that inform teachers that technology is NOT a stand alone.  Instead it should be utilized as a tool in enhance instruction.