When educators, parents and politicians come up with the issue of technology and education, there is two different path to go through: you will find some of them who believe that technology does not need to be a big part of education; and some of them who advocate for a daily integration. As Bob Regan established in this article, “Educators must find ways to incorporate multimedia technologies into everyday activities, and help students explore and master new ways to communicate what they are learning.”
The first thing that we need to do as educators is recognize which is our relationship with this issue and how we are going to solve it. Secondly, we need to define what technology is. In my opinion people who are against of introducing technology into the classroom believe that technologies are passive tools where children cannot have interactions. But the rest of them, who really advocate for the incorporations of technology, believe that children can still be active learners using technologies.
For me technology is a tool, where children can interact, explore and develop different kind of learning. For example mathematic games, language games, etc. It is very important to understand that technology needs look different in an early childhood classroom and a high school classroom. As children are growing, the use of technology must change and it can be use for collaborative learning, critical thinking, problem solving and literacy.
After reading this article I started to think and look for other information which explain about technology and the early childhood classroom. I found a very interesting article, which speak about the importance of being responsible in integrating technology as an interactive tools. http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/using_technology.htm
The 21 century is giving us a chance to advocate and recognize a different way to develop important skills in our student. Technology needs to be a partner in our teaching and we need to understand that learning by doing can be possible with the use of technologies. If we are going to a field trip, we can give to our students cameras and let them take their own pictures.
Every tool that a teacher uses in her classroom needs to be part of a curriculum that develops critical thinking and problem solving. But the most important think: learning how to be citizen of the world. As the article that I mentioned said before “Technology is not going to go away and we are in the midst of a major sociocultural quantum shift. These technologies are revolutionizing the world our children will live in. So our task is to balance appropriate skill-development with technologies with the core principles and experiences necessary to raise healthy children”
Example of resources for math game (Mathematic for teacher EDUC 540)
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