Reflection
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Throughout
my student teaching experience I feel that technology served as a wonderful
aid in many of the lessons that I taught. As I taught the unit on plants
and their growth, I noticed that the students were much more interested
in what we were doing because of the different technology we were using.
Many times the students would ask me, when are we going to go to the computer
lab?
When individual computer work was done the students were always very anxious for their turn and when I had them at the computer they were very excited to express what they had learned. From watching their reaction to this unit compared to other units I did not using technology, I noticed a big difference. The students were able to obtain more information that they could recall weeks later. The information seemed to "stick" with them in a meaningful way.
I was more excited to teach the ideas to the students because it was different, hands on, and fun for them. They were able to experiment with things such as digital cameras, laptop computers, and graphic organizing programs, things that they are associated with adults,
I saw confidence in quiet children rise, I saw them express themselves in ways they hadn't before. I saw my lower achievers expressing ideas that they often can not express on paper with a pencil or orally in front of the class. The computer allowed them to feel free to express what they learned and not be afraid that it was wrong.