Week One Essential Question

Why should we integrate technology into the classroom?

Technology can be a great resource that allows lessons and concepts that are being taught within the classroom become more engaging and interactive.  Technology has and still continues to be an essential part of life in our society.  The integration of technology has positive effects on a classroom and its students and creates lifelong learning opportunities.  There are so many beneficial outcomes.  One of which, is students are able to become more engaged in a lesson or concept that is being taught.  For instance, I teach a unit on life cycles.  Being able to show videos and create lessons on the MimioXi and projector would enhance my students' learning as I would be able to show videos off of sites such as Discovery Streaming and have more interactive lessons where the children get out of their seats and connect more with the concepts they are learning.

I just recently received the MimioXi in the classroom and I was playing around with it during a math lesson in which the children had to fill out a Comparison Diagram to complete the problem.  I created one on the board and had the children come up using the mouse to fill in the correct answers.  Just something as simple as that, they were itching to get a turn, all of their hands were up to answer a question, and they were inching their seats closer and closer to see what I would do next with the technology.  They become entranced with what you are teaching because it is a new way of teaching, a new way of presenting a concept to them, and a new way of learning.


A quote that I enjoy and use all the time by John Dewey states, "If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow."  Technology is impacting our students' everyday lives and by incorporating it within the classroom it prepares students for the real world.  If we have this great resource to bring lessons to life, make information more attainable, and create lessons that are more engaging and effective, why not incorporate it into the classroom?  If we have it then we should use it.  Embracing technology and incorporating it into our everyday lessons is going to change students' learning for the better.  Not incorporating it and staying with the "old ways" is not going to hurt students, but if we have the resources to incorporate it into our classrooms than we should because it kicks learning up a notch.  Children like it because it is new and interesting.  Lessons become more interactive and there is so much that can be done with it to teach in a different way.

A tool that I hope to incorporate and find beneficial in my classroom is livebinder.com.  I like that I can create binders for different units and house them in one online place that can be accessed from anywhere that has Internet.  This is help in organizing lessons that I create for the MimioXi.  I will be able to gather all the links and information that is necessary in order to implement the lesson using the technology that I have in the classroom.  I like the idea of this resource because I have filing cabinets of paper and books for lessons, but have not found a successful way of organizing online materials in a nice efficient way and I believe that livebinder will allow me to be successful at that.