Five Ways Teachers Can Use Technology to Help Students

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/darrell-west/five-ways-teachers-can-us_b_3228851.html

"Books will soon be obsolete in the public schools......our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years." - Thomas Edison 

Darrell West and Joshua Bleiberg start their article off with this powerful quote from Thomas Edison. Thomas made this prediction over 100 years ago. The school system and classroom has hardly changed in the past 100 years. West and Bleiberg state, "The education system operates under the antiquated needs of an agrarian and industrial America." The school day was set up to allow students time to work on family farms and schools have an industrial mentality that places students in arbitrary groups based on their age. Technology has failed to make a major impact in the classroom. The article talks about how the government regulates schools more than other organizations and has created too many veto points to stop innovation. 

After complaining about what has kept our educational system has been held back, West and Bleiberg give five suggestions to empower teachers to utilize technology to help students learn. There five points are: schools must use technology that empowers teachers, teachers should treat the adoption of technology as part of lesson planning, teachers should not fear open-source technologies, use online education portfolios to evaluate students, and teachers should embrace the Common Core State Standards. They give supporting evidence for each point. 

I enjoyed getting to learn about the past of the educational system and why technology has not been implemented. Knowing the background and the problem is the start of change. The five points were well thought out and very good suggestions. Teachers are afraid of the communication abilities that social media brings. The big fight with phones is that students are constantly texting, tweeting, snap chatting, and much more with other students. Teachers fail to try to use apps that empower them as teachers. The ability to share lesson plans wirelessly is an exciting thought. Teachers would be very excited if they could search a database of lesson plans that someone else had perfected. 

The point that district leaders are trying new things and ditching the old way too often is an appealing thought. It makes since that a beneficial reform would be difficult if the time is always spent implementing changes the district continues to make. Utilizing sites like Kahn Academy to supplement the book material can improve learning. Schools are getting closer to adopting technology into their classrooms. There are some districts that have made a leap to technology and are still trying to figure out how to maximize them. Finances can be a roadblock that many schools will hit when trying to become tech savvy. 

I would like to utilize technology in my classroom but not enable the kids to use it in the classroom. I enjoy watching Kahn Academy lessons and other educational clips. I think the Smart Board can help transform lesson planning and implementation. Technology in the students' hands still scares me. There are so many distractions and possible trouble that students will have if they are allowed internet access all day. I think eventually we will get there but it will take many more years before all schools buy in and become tech. savvy.