Reflection on Technology lesson

Marla Morin
November 25, 2008
Reflection on Field Experience
Technology is one of those necessary evils…ok maybe that is a little harsh. Technology really is a very useful tool to have in a classroom and with the direction that this world is moving in, it is more and more important for our children to have exposure to it as early as possible.
In our field experience, we have good lessons and bad lessons with technology. Our first two experiences with technology in the classroom were not very good. Our first lesson that we did with our sixth grade class involved our digital story. As we tried out the video on our cooperating teacher’s computer, we could not get the video and the sound to work together. We could play the sound and watch the slides, so we pulled out our story board and as the cues came up we just clicked on the slide so the image would come up when we wanted it to. We made due, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been.
Our second lesson involved a PowerPoint. Again, we were having problems getting Mr. Wyatt’s computer to work with our saved documents on our flash drive, but this time we learned our lesson and Heather brought her computer. Unfortunately, it is an older computer and took a very long time to load. Then in order to get the projector to recognize the computer we had to re-start it. We started the lesson without the images, but the students I think would have come up with more ideas for that lesson plan if they had had the images first. We eventually got the PowerPoint working and the kids got the idea, but again, it would have been much better if we had been able to use the PowerPoint how we had intended.
The third time we got things down. We used another PowerPoint to again display images, but this time I brought my computer and got there with plenty of time to get everything set up and made sure that the computer connected properly to the projector. It worked out very nicely and it really helped students to understand the content of the lesson.
Our fourth lesson consisted of stations. One of the stations included writing a diamante poem on the computers that were available in the classroom. Unfortunately, there is no printer available in the classroom and we couldn’t save all of the documents between each rotation so we just had the students leave the windows open. However, one student didn’t hear the instructions and closed all the windows on his computer. I don’ think it really matters though, the programs are so old on those computers that I doubt we would have been able to open them on one of our laptops.
Our final lesson was another successful one with technology. We had students do news programs reporting from an assigned ancient civilization. Our teacher brought in his digital video camera and we recorded each of their news shows. We were able to burn it into a DVD and add a few headings and a little music in the beginning. We then watched the news shows the next day in class. The kids really enjoyed it and the DVD turned out pretty good.
As an overall observation on technology in the classroom I think I learned two major lessons. One, you always need a back-up plan. Sometimes, computers don’t work, some fuses gets blown, or one of the other million other potential disasters occur. You always need a back-up plan just in case something doesn’t work. The second lesson I learned was that you need to make sure you have plenty of set up time, especially if you are using unfamiliar equipment. You have to know the programs, computers, and whatever other kind of device you are using to make sure you know how to fix small problems, and with that you may need a little extra time.
All and all I really liked incorporating technology into our classroom. I think it made our lessons a little more interactive and gave some exposure to the children about what kinds of things they are capable of doing. I would have liked to sit in on one of their computer lab days to see exactly what they do in the computer lab, but I guess I still have a lot of field work ahead to be able to see that.