The teaching and learning environment in the traditional classroom is changing at an exponential rate. From my own experience, the traditional text and lecture environment has evolved in many helpful and intriguing ways. I can remember when I attended High School that the classroom was dominated by lectures, texts, overhead projectors, and blackboards. I myself was engaged, but only to a certain extent. Computers and technology were few and far between with only a limited use through the traditional computer lab or library. In the four years that I attended High School I can’t even remember a single computer in one of my classes. I feel that I had one advantage during these years; I had a computer at home. Although my use was limited, my mother always felt that computers were the future of the working world.
I attended some college out of High School and then decided to enter the working world. Over the years I found computers and technology having a direct impact in my profession. It seemed as if e-mail and texting were taking the place of the day to day interactions between consumer and company. The traditional phone call or handshake agreement was being replaced by a digital conversation, thus making the process more efficient and accurate along with a digital record. This in turn noticeably cut down the errors and miscommunication. I currently coach varsity football and can’t begin to express how computers have changed the world I knew into the tech driven society we now live in. One example of this is as simple as game film. In the past, a coach was responsible for breaking down the film and relaying the feedback to the players in a traditional environment. All 53 players would sit in a room with one T.V. and the coach would review game film and try to correct or improve a player or team objectives. This method has greatly changed in my 10 years of coaching. We now have the ability to reach every single player and educate in many different ways. With the use of technology we can now breakdown film to suit each individual player. We can send each player home with a dvd that has been broken down with the intent to educate the individual player. The dvd contains just what we want the player to see, allows us to give feedback, a provides the player the opportunity to take responsibility to review the film in his own environment as a one on one teaching tool.
Technology, in my opinion, is becoming the greatest asset for a teacher in creating the ideal teaching environment. The teacher can now facilitate a productive environment that reaches all of the students, rather than a certain demographic. Technology can assist the teacher in the day to day activities such as grading, monitoring the student, assessing the learning comprehension, and involving individual students. Technology can also provide a bridge for parents to communicate with the teacher and keep abreast on current activities, relations, and student progression that can replace the simple “progress report” that are usually sent home with the student in hopes that it reaches the parent. Technology can also “improve student achievement, efficiency, productivity, and decision making” as stated in the article “Why Technology in Schools” from the EdTechActionNetwork website. Overall, technology is a part of our daily personal and professional lives and must be integrated into our learning environment to help educate and prepare our youth for the world.
EdTechActionNetwork. "Why Technology in Schools." EdTechAtionNetwork. 24 Jan. 2009 .