Technology in the Classroom!

During my second grade year at Galatas Elementary School in The Woodlands, Texas, I can remember begging my mother to drive me to school a half an hour early so that I could go visit my first grade teacher and help her clean off her overhead slides from the day before. As I caught Mrs. Vermillion up on all the happenings in my invigorating, seven year old life, she would allow me to doodle on the see through slides and see my works of art pop up on her board. This was my definition of the perfect start to a day.


As I moved from elementary school to Mitchell Intermediate School, it absolutely blew my mind to discover on the first day that each and every homeroom classroom had a television mounted on the wall to watch the morning and afternoon announcements on! The words to the pledge of allegiance even appeared on the screen as we were saying it- in my mind it absolutely could not get any cooler than that! In fact, at the end of the day, the bus numbers would even pop up on the television screen to alert us of when to head outside and look for our bus driver's familiar face. But this was not the only instance I was exposed to technology in my fifth and sixth grade years. Starting in fifth grade, my public school required us to take keyboarding class every single day. Each computer had a contraption that covered our keyboards and only contained a slot big enough for us to slip our tiny hands under. We were then tested on our words per minutes and accuracy level each day, which, might I add, seemed pretty intense for ten year olds. But, looking back on it, I am so unbelievably grateful that my old school district recognized the importance of making sure we were all proficient and comfortable using technology and prepared us for the years to come when technology usage sky rocketed.

In my high school, there was not a single class that did not get a SmartBoard installed during my freshman year. Every teacher was required to take a four hour long seminar one Saturday morning, in order to teach them all the ins and outs of this new form of technology, and I can  honestly say that I noticed a drastic spike in participation and attendance in all my classes. My classmates who normally slept and chitchatted through our forty-five minute spanish class each day now were having to be told by the teacher to give other students a turn because they wanted to get up in front of the class and use the SmartBoard. The SmartBoard encouraged students in my high school to get excited about learning and coming to class again. Although some of my teachers struggled, initially, trying to figure out the more advanced capabilities of this new technology, overall I believe every one of my teachers would agree that the SmartBoards were a worthwhile investment and definitely had a positive affect on the learning environment.

Although I am only eighteen years old, I have gotten the opportunity to witness unbelievable growth and change in regards to technology in the classroom. Just as technology is always expanding and improving, so are the noted benefits of incorporating it into the learning environment. Throughout technology's history in the classroom, it has encouraged students to get involved, prepared them for the working environment, which revolves more and more around technology each day, and allows them to access information within seconds. I, personally, feel as if students should be exposed to as many forms of technology as possible, starting at a young age. I believe that technology is the key to the future and that it is only appropriate and logical for educators to use the technology of today, in the classroom today. 


 "It's the difference between looking at a picture of a heart in a textbook, and looking at a beating heart and being able to slow it down and analyze it to see exactly how it works, step by step," said a high school science teacher in Florida about the difference between teaching from traditional methods compared to teaching by using technology and simulations.