If my lack of aptitude for
technology didn't already give it away, my experience with integrating
technology into school, was not very successful. In elementary school,
computers were sparse and used for playing, rather than learning. I can remember being in fourth grade thinking
that being able to use the computers was THE COOLEST thing, reserved for the
students who did well and finished early.
The extent of its educational purpose was teaching students how to type,
so we could transform handwritten assignments to typed ones.
In middle school, we were introduced to laptops, but we only ever used
them for the standard visit-this-website-and-do-some-research or
type-up-this-paper assignments. In this school, there was a whole room for
computers, rather than just one computer per room, but the computers were still
mainly used for the same purpose: typing.
There was some very basic training in the standard Microsoft office
applications, but nothing too wild or fancy.
There is not much I remember about the one computer class I had to take
in middle school (a 5th grade level class). The thing I remember the
most is that everyone was excited to sit in the “wheely-chairs” for a whole
class period. The lab was mostly just
used for that one class and the remaining grades (6th, 7th
and 8th) occasionally used laptops which were brought to classrooms
in a large cart which was charmingly named the ”COW” which I believe stood for
computers-on-wheels.
High school was similar in that
only one basic skills course was required and then students could pick another
computer-oriented course as an elective.
The difference between my high school and middle school computer
experience was the number of classes offered. Since I was the type to shy away
from technology rather than embrace it, I only ever took the basic level course
and then a “Graphic Arts” course to fill the other computer-elective
requirement.
As a future educator, I hope to be able to apply technology to my lessons in an easy productive, relevant way. I want to be able to offer students multiple resources to help them learn and discover new things. I want students to be able to use technology for more than just typing up papers and looking up facts. Teaching music is a lot about creating and exploring and I hope to be able to incorporate technology into my lessons in the same way.