Class reflections and closing comments

Friday's class was very interesting. I really appreciated having the MAC alumni come in and speak with us. It was refreshing to hear their first-hand experience with teaching, particularly the technological aspect of it. It was nice to hear the effective ways the teachers were able to implement technology into their class. I particularly am interested in the Moodle site the teachers found so handy.

It was nice to hear that technology they introduced into the classroom went over well with their students, and that other teachers were interested and wanted to incorporate some technology into their classroom as well. I thought the one teachers' idea to use facebook as a way to hold "office hours" was very clever. In doing this it makes the teacher more accessible to the students without having to physically spend extra time at the school. Allowing students to access the teacher after school hours, perhaps later at night when they may be struggling with a problem on their homework, is a great idea. Students can have their questions answered before class the next day, so they can come prepared and with a better understanding of the homework before having to turn it in. This also allows the students to feel better connected to the teacher, and feel that the teacher is their "ally" in their pursuit of education. This will also encourage the students to do their homework before the teacher's facebook office hours, so they can have their questions answered as they won't have an excuse the next day to not know how to solve a problem. I think this is a very clever idea, and one that I will try to implement in my future classrooms.

It was also really great to talk with Lauren in New York, as well as her students. I enjoyed hearing her take on cell phones in the classroom. While I think that there can be some benefits to having students put their cell phones to good use- like looking up information when other computers are not available- I also think that there would be a lot of distraction caused by them.

I was encouraged to see how engaged her students appeared to be in her class. They both seemed to enjoy being in her classroom and learning English from her. It was great that we were able to ask them questions about their take on technology in the classroom. In the discussion concerning the role of technology in class, and where that balance is, we have to remember to keep the students' perspectives and opinions in mind. The girls seemed to acknowledge that there are concerns the teachers have about allowing the students to keep the phones in class, and appear to be respectful of that, which is encouraging.

In bringing this summer course to a close, I really appreciated our discussion in class about our thoughts and concerns that we have about technology, now that we have studied the varying views and studies on this topic. While I still have some reservations concerning technology and while I still don't like the way it is establishing its' ever-presence in society, I do indeed see the potential benefits and place that it can hold in a classroom. I think that it is very important to help kids see the connection between education and society, and it is impossible to ignore the role technology holds in society today. From here begins my quest for finding the fine balance between a technologically based classroom and a paper, textbook and pencil based classroom. Let the search begin...