Over the last few weeks we have learned various applications and websites to use to bring technology into the classroom. As part of our assignments for this class we will be creating lesson plans that integrate technology. Essentially, we have come to the Now What? part of the semester, where we start showing that we can appropriately integrate technology as aid in our students’ learning.
A few weeks ago, I had chosen the second grade science standard about erosion. At first I did have some ideas, but that was before all the options we had learned since! Needless to say, tonight I was feeling a bit like this:
But after asking my professor my questions and speaking with him about my concerns, I remembered the overarching theme I have seen throughout all the articles I have read and videos I have watched: the technology we use needs to be appropriate to what we are teaching. It is meant as an aid to enhance our lessons, and it is supposed to fit in naturally. Remembering this helped me focus on just the applications that made sense to what I am planning to teach. And that made all the difference!
Consequently, I left class feeling much more like this:
Mrs. Chykirda...in the classroom 
I hope that I contributed to your calm. Great point…find where tech fits. As we get more tech savvy admins observing your teaching, they will recognize the difference better enhancement and tech for tech sake:)
Thank you! You absolutely helped!
Katie – great post and cartoons of yourself. I must admit I’m kind of stuck on the first drawing myself! But your post is a good reminder of what to focus on when it comes to which technology best fits the lesson. I think it’s incredible how we are learning about so many different tools out there to enhance our teaching, but it’s overwhelming because there are so many to choose from! A good problem to have, I guess. Thanks for sharing your “calm” with others…it definitely helps.
Hi Katie, liked your post for a couple reason. One, the head with the crazy hair kind of resembles me after tech class as I try to process all the information and try to figure out how to use it and include it in my classroom. I’ve learned more about current technologies during this semester than I did at my work in the previous five years….maybe that should tell me something. The second item I liked is your comment that technology should enhance to contribute to the overall lesson. We should be using technology just to use it!! I am getting the impression that teachers need each one of their lessons to be 100% stimulating, 100% for each student, 100% percent of the time. My thought is that students are on digital overload–then again, maybe I’m just projecting my thoughts on them!!