Technology & Education by Laurie Lenz

Digital Generation

Posted by Laurie Lenz on March 23, 2012   Category: Digital Generation    .

Teens have always been social beings whether it be hanging out at the mall or talking on the phone.  Recently, however, the means in which teens socialize have changed.  They still spend quite a bit of time together, but when not socializing in person, they are communicating through texting or chatting on the internet rather than the old conventional methods that we as adults are used to.  These days, youth spend more time on technology than every before but I believe that teens are now available to a wealth of knowledge and information that previous youth have not had.  Youth have always been curious, that has no changed.  The venues in which their curiosity gets them into trouble is what has changed.

Seeing how some classrooms utilizing technology is certainly overwhelming in some cases.  The resources and philosophy of some of the schools that I was introduced to are vastly different than my current situation, but I found myself very open to the idea of moving my classroom in the general direction of technology based.  There were several projects and ideas that I found useful and easily adaptable to my classroom.  The best idea was creating a wiki page for my students to create projects and publish on.  Another idea that I would like to implement is the opportunity to post and respond to current events online in which I am working on creating  a blog for.  Hopefully that will be up and running by 4th quarter.

My classroom vision is certainly changing the more technology that I am exposed to.  I have already spoken to the technology coordinator at my school to see if a few computers can be added to my classroom.  Currently we have a laptop cart that shared between five classrooms, but I thought maybe a few in my classroom would be beneficial for quick projects and research.  This new directions will no doubt have several positive impacts on the critical thinking skills of my students, their flexibility and adaptability.  The only con that I foresee is involves timing.  I feel that some projects take a great deal of class time, something that I feel that I am limited with.  Organizing, gaining access to technology, and implementing technology based projects effectively are some of the challenges that I see as a set back to the vision that I am developing for my classroom.