Technology in the Classroom

We all have seen some sort of technology used in the classroom at some point whether it was when we were in school or when we were observing a teacher. Technology doesn't always have to be the most expensive piece of equipment just another technique for catching the attention of your students. While I attended elementary through high school the most technology we had were over head projectors and computer labs. Now many schools have interactive whiteboards and iPads.

I interviewed Kailey Crockett, a reading specialist and 6th grade Explorations through Literature teacher from Berlin Middle School in Berlin, NH. I have known Ms. Crockett for many years and knew that Berlin was increasing the amount of Technology in their classrooms. 

She believes that children in this generation are able to understand information better when it is presented through the use of technology. In addition to understanding it better, students are given the opportunity to express their learning in a way that makes the most sense to them. Technology is used to increase learning since using technology in the classroom allows you to easily modify the work for your students. In doing this, you are able to ensure that all students are learning at their level.

Within Ms. Crockett’s classroom she uses a smartboard, projector, iPads, computers and Microsoft Office. Many of the books at their school are falling apart and the district isn't able to keep up with the cost of replacing them. “With the use of ebooks, we would be able to change the books that we read more often because we wouldn't have to worry about constantly replacing them.”

Berlin Middle School is currently in the process of setting up Kuno Classrooms. Until that goes into full effect she won’t know the results of how it will help the students. Budgeting does not effect the usage of technology in Berlin since they were given a grant, in September of 2014, to provide 1:1 access of tablets to the students. I think this is amazing for the students and teachers to have access to tablets at any given time and have enough so that students are not sharing.

Ms. Crockett uses technology on a daily basis. She spends most of her day completing data analysis, which is all done on the computer. “In the quarter course I teach, we complete two projects using technology per quarter.” In her short experience as a teacher she has not seen any disadvantages to using technology in the classroom.

A main concern to any educator with technology is that students will misuse the devices for purposes other than academics. She has seen this in her classroom. They tried “bring your own device program” where the students were required to have their parents sign a permission slip. Since the students brought in their own devices the school could not regulate the apps that were already on their devices. So students were using apps like Facebook and Snap Chat during school hours and sending inappropriate things to their friends. “We collected all personal devices, found the ones that were misusing, revoked privileges, and suspended a few.”

Now to look into the future and predict where technology integration may be. She believes that in five years most schools will have 1:1 access. “I think that teachers will be required to get more training in technology and how to effectively use it.” In ten years, she believes there the majority of classrooms will be flip classrooms and potentially little to no in school time for lectures. She enjoying integrating technology into her daily lessons and looks forward to what the future holds.