Edci 5825 - Phil Of Edu Tech 6-17

Laura Tuneski EDCI 5825 June 17, 2009 Philosophy of Educational Technology I plan to incorporate many various types of technology to promote student engagements and achievement in the high school English classes I will be teaching. It is my expectation that using different technology tools as a teaching aid will contribute to my student’s learning and acquisition of ideas, allow students to contribute and share information, and allow them to become aware of educational technologies which might benefit them in the future. I believe it is common practice for English teachers to assign reading and writing assignment for homework and then use class time for class discussions, group work, and lecturing. I feel that the biggest problem with this teaching practice is that these teachers are neglecting to engage their students, which decreases student motivation, yielding less knowledge absorbed by students. I believe that using technology will be an effective way to better engage students, get them to think critically, and to have them become active participates in the classroom. Power points presentations, for example, are a great way to organize and present data. As a teacher I will use power points to illustrate the major themes for that class. This will help me to keep the class on track, and will draw student’s attention to help them focus. By

using power points in my classroom practices, students will become familiar with them, and will learn how to create their own power points. When I am designing assignments, I will include power point presentations as an option for students who may detest writing longwinded papers. I feel that when students are given options on assignments, they can select the mode of which they feel at ease with, which ultimately produces a better product. English classes commonly require students to complete many writing assignments. As I mentioned previously, for some students writing papers seems like a punishment. While I will require some assignments to be completed in paper format, I feel that using blogs and wiki’s are great way to differentiate classroom assessments. By allowing my students to choose various technology tools to complete assignments, I am supporting and encouraging the learning needs of my diverse student learners. Additionally, blogs and wiki spaces are a great way for students to publish and share information with their peers. These two technologies will prompt students to become active participants and engaged learners. Students will be given class time to work on these assignments to ensure that all students have the equal opportunity to contribute. I will also invite parents to become members of the blogs and wiki spaces to see what their children are working on. This technology will promote open lines of communication for students, their parents, and myself.

I will use technology in the classroom to engage students and stimulate interest, present students with a means to share their work with others, and become more familiar and aware of technologies that may assist them in the future. In my English classes I plan to implement the use of power points, blogs, wiki spaces, and discussion boards. It is my understanding that introducing new technologies into the classroom will present students with a variety of ways to complete assignments. This will directly benefit all of my students because they will be given a choice of how they will to complete their assignments. Incorporating multiple technologies into the classroom will inevitably help teachers become better educators.