Ch. 1 Reflection - Bryan Pechtl

Ideas or learnings of interest (3):

For chapter one, a few of the things I found interesting was, first, the authors noted that the solid basic understanding of technology operations and concepts “is more than keyboarding and using electronic e-mail or accessing the Internet”. I found that interesting because what I’ve run into is students that do just that. For as technically adept as many adults think kids are, the kids actually have little experience beyond the Internet. Spreadsheets, power points, and databases are like a foreign language to them. As a history teacher, I find myself teaching kids the basics of the programs before they complete work.

Second, I liked the example the book used with the social studies teacher preparing a lesson using the Library of Congress documents. I can relate because I’ve done similar exercises in the past. Some of my peers that don’t use technology too much don’t realize the amount of prep that goes into making an effective lesson that students will be able to learn from.

Finally, the book says that (page 12) with all the access to information, people will have to know how to process the information, analyze it, and use it to learn. This has also been a challenge for some students that I’ve dealt with. They know that they can access virtually anything on the web, but they struggle with how to use it.

Two new ideas for integrating tech (2):

Because chapter one is more introductory, I found it a bit challenging to obtain two new ideas for instruction. However, because students are limited to often simply searching the internet with a web browser, at the beginning of the school year I will likely include a lesson on each of the programs that we will regularly utilize.

Second, I liked the in-depth example of the social studies teacher on pages 10-12. I think using more primary sources like those from the available at the Library of Congress will be something I will do, too. Having the students actually accessing the document from the website after I instruct them in the usage from the site should be quite beneficial.

One point of concern for integrating tech (1):

Once concern I have with teaching technology is student access. I know we have access at our school, but outside of school, the students are rather limited with what they have access to, so more time ends up being spent in the computer lab than I would normally spend.