The Vision of Students Today

After watching the video on “the vision of students today” and reviewing the Net Generation PowerPoint, I realized the impact technology can and should have in our classrooms today. From personal experience, after I graduated from High School eight years ago, and went back to school to work as a teacher aide, I could not believe how much things have changed in so little time. The first new technology I was exposed to was the “smart boards.”  I had no clue what these “whiteboards” were and how they worked, until I saw a Math teacher utilize one of them. I remember saying to myself, “Wow, I wish we had one of those when I was in school.” I also noticed how much students enjoyed their math teacher using this interactive board. He used all these different colors to show different Math operations. He asked students to come up to this “cool” board and solve problems on it. I was so impressed how these students also knew how to use the “smart board” so well.

Now that I have been working in a classroom for a while, I have been seeing how technology is implemented in all different classrooms such as, Math, Social Studies, Science, and Foreign Language. I believe that is essential for teachers, whenever they develop lessons plans, to have in mind their students’ abilities and skills. Technology allows teachers to be creative and plan lessons that are fun and interactive, and can help keep students engaged. Each lesson is going to be different, and it is up to the teacher to find materials and resources that are appropriate to use in each particular lesson. . For example, for one lesson the textbook may give a wonderful explanation and the students may grasp the material right away. For a different lesson, students might struggle with understanding the textbook’s explanation; therefore the teacher needs to dedicate her or his time to find other sources that give a better explanation for students to understand, such as videos and the internet, since they are great tools to use. This is a great example of how technology can aid the learning process when traditional methods are not achieving the desired goals. 

I feel students today are very technologically savvy; they use it in their everyday life, and it will keep them interested in classroom activities.  It is very important as a teacher to evolve based on the students in the class and how they most effectively and efficiently learn.  The video showed that kids use technology such as video games, cell phones and watching TV more than they read books.  This indicates to me that students today do not like to read books as much.  Therefore, focusing all of a class’ content on bookwork appears to be a method that will quickly lose my students’ interest and attention.  Bookwork is needed in the classroom, but with all of the great new technology available, it should not be the only tool used.  Just providing the knowledge to students is not enough to get them to learn; how a teacher presents is often the key.  For example, an easy way to institute technology and eliminate tedious bookwork is to set up a class webpage and post homework assignments that can be completed and submitted online.  This will allow students to get away from the books they may find so boring, and onto the internet, which they find so interesting.

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