ECOMP 5106 Assignment 1.1 Technology Autobiography

I have been teaching in middle school for sixteen years and have had the opportunity to teach language arts, science, and seminar, which is a combination of reading, language arts and science. In each of those disciplines I have been able to incorporate technology. I am still not proficient, but I am working toward that goal. When I think back to the first encounter I had with technology, I am reminded of time when I had to create a technology assignment for my students to follow. I had only been teaching life science for three years. I wanted to use the computers in the media center. I remember that I had to convince the media specialist that my students would benefit from learning how to use the publisher program as well as the research process. We took longer than I planned to complete the assignment but after the presentations I knew it was all worth it. The media specialist complimented my students as we left the media center. I was hooked on using technology even if it was just researching and using publisher to create a newsletter.
I transferred the next year to my current school which was a brand new school and it was filled with computers—three in every room, two computer labs, and a media center available with computers for research. Most importantly, a teacher position was available for a technology specialist. She was my most valuable resource since I was anxious to use technology in my classroom but I was now teaching both earth science and language arts to gifted students. Not only was I new to the gifted program, but also I was a novice at most of the computer programs—Power Point, Publisher, Inspiration, Excel, and Access. These programs are more familiar to me now, but I still want and need to learn more about each of them. The technology specialist taught me some important lessons. One lesson was to always create a folder for each lesson and save every piece of teacher-created technology. I made her laugh when I did not save a handout on identifying adverbs, which I created for my language arts students. I did not think I would be teaching language arts again the next year, so I printed without saving. It wasn’t until she had some suggestions for me and asked where I saved the assignment, that she realized I only had a hard copy. Every time we had an in-service at school to introduce a new computer program, she used her experience with me as an example for always saving and backing up work. Another valuable lesson she taught me was to incorporate technology slowly and to evaluate each activity for it ability to enhance student learning before implementing it.
As I continued to teach gifted students, I realized how much technology can enhance a lesson and offer opportunities for students to think critically. Every year I have made it my goal to add a piece of technology to one lesson. Planning a technology lesson is time consuming and can be challenging because it must be geared toward state standards as well as it must enhance student learning. When I plan a culminating activity that incorporates technology, I offer my students a variety of presentation choices in order to reach their various levels of ability. I have found that most of my students are familiar with Power Point, Publisher, and Inspiration. Some are even able to bring a recorded video from home and import it into a multimedia program such as Movie Maker. Each year I learn some new technology techniques from my students and that enables me to add more technology to my lessons. Teaching a seminar class allows me the freedom to add technology to my lessons and not worry about time constraints that other disciplines have to cover a topic before the state testing in the spring. What interests me the most when it comes to adding technology to enhance my lessons is presenting a problem to the students, allowing them to do some research, having them formulate a solution to the problem, and then present their solution using various multimedia programs.
Even though my school does not have a technology person at this point, I can really appreciate the need for one. Currently, my school has become a 21st Century School and will be the recipient of various new pieces of technology. One piece of technology that we will be receiving is a Smart Board. I am anxious to learn how to use this interactive board.
The main incentive for completing my masters in technology is to learn how to use many new computer techniques and be able to incorporate them into my teaching. I feel that technology is a motivator for students to learn. Also, I feel that even though the technology I teach my students now may be obsolete by the time they graduate high school, I want to instill in them a love of technology and I want to enhance their critical thinking skills.