TIE 542 Week 2 Reflections

This week has been information overload! My NLU technology class has provided me with a lot of new web 2.0 resources that I can use in my future classroom. Of all of the tools that were introduced, I think that I am most excited about Instapaper, which allows you to save web pages so that you can read them at a later time. All you have to do is click and drag the "Read Later" button to your browser toolbar. Then, once you are on a webpage that you want to view later, you just click the "Read Later" button. It's amazing! I have attempted to use other tools, such as Stickr to perform the same task, but this is much efficient and simple.

The big discussion in class this week was, obviously, about technology and its place in the classroom. Can you be a good teacher without using technology? Does a teacher have to be "tech-savvy" in order to teach technology to the students? These are just a few questions that weigh on my mind. For now, I feel that a teacher can be considered "good" if he/she is willing to teach in ways that allow the students to be successful learners. If that involves technology, great! If not, then okay. My biggest fear is that there seem to be an overwhelming amount of teachers that reside on either end of the technology spectrum. Either they are terrified of technology or hate it and therefore refuse to use it in their classroom, or everything they do revolves around technology to the point that its almost overkill. Technology is a TOOL that teachers can use to teach effectively, but technology should not be relied on to do the teaching for us.