The Use of Technology During my Education

Technology is an essential part of education today.  No matter what age group is being taught, education is using technology to enhance the learning of students. Through out my education experience the farther I went in my education, the more technology I used.  I used technology for turning in assignments, viewing homework material and lectures, and also as a fun learning resource.  If technology is used correctly I believe that it can encourage students to have motivation to learn new things.

During my years in elementary school, technology was not used very often.  I went to a Bethany Elementary School which at that time it was about 80 years old.  I was in elementary school from 1998-2003.  The first computers that I used at that school were old colored mac computers.  With these computers we had one day a week that we could go to the computer lab to visit fun learning websites such as Cool Math.  Some teachers would try to do learning exercises online but they all had a hard time handling a class full of rowdy fifth graders while the computers would constantly mess up.  Even though technology was rarely used in classroom teaching, we all had one computer in each classroom that was used to take A.R. tests.  A.R. stood for Advanced Reading in which students had to read books and then take tests on them to earn points.  After you earned as certain number of points then you got prizes and celebrations at the end of the year.

My middle school years at Rockingham County Middle School were not much different than my elementary school when it came to technology used in education.  Even though the middle school I went to was only 5 years old at the time, I did not have many assignments that were done on the computer due to many kids at school did not have the money to afford computers themselves.  A.R. was still used and except for my computer class we did nothing else with technology.  However in my technology class which at the time was new to the school, I learned how to type correctly as well as make different graphs and excel sheets.  PowerPoint was also new and I learned the basics of how create a successful presentations.

At Rockingham County High School the use of technology was very important.  It became a big adjustment for me when I now had to make PowerPoints for every presentation and I had to now type every paper.  The technology I used in high school were PowerPoints, watching documentaries, homework questions, etc.  Something new that was added to our school when I was a junior was ActivBoards.  I lived in a rural county and getting new technology in my school was a big deal.  Although the ActivBoard seemed like a good idea, no teacher knew how to work them so they would use them as big overhead projectors to put their notes on.  Some teachers would not even use them at all.  The only time they were used for interactive purposes was when students would go on the board and draw pictures waiting for the next class to start.  Since my school was in a rural area, my school hardly had any funding to get any new technology.  It was only in Air Force JROTC that I was able to correctly use technology.  JROTC gets funding from the military which gave them the opportunity to incorporate technology in their teaching.  The only other class that I used computers in on a regular basis was Algebra II in which we used a program called Castle Learning Online which was a program that would give us practice questions which prepared us for the End of Course Test ( EOC).

The farther I went along in my education the more important technology became.  The use of computers were important for looking up information for research papers or to read an article on an online newspaper.  I believe that the farther we progress in our advances in technology the more we will be able to help children succeed.  Technology is a great way to motivate students to learn.  There are many reasons why technology is successful in teaching students.  In the video on the right, explains how the regular use of technology in the classroom will make learning more interactive and help keep a child's interest.  One of the points that are made in the video is that children use technology in their everyday lives for fun, so using something that children already consider fun to help them learn is a excellent idea to keep their interest.  Another important topic mentioned is that technology will help save teachers time.  For example grading papers and homework can be very time consuming, with technology available teachers can give tests online and they can be graded by the computer when the student completes it so the teacher have more time to help his/her students.  Technology has also been proven to help raise test scores.

I can see the future of technology drastically changing the way students learn in the future.  New advances such as iPads, tablets, and other computer advances will help students to be motivated to learn.  In the article Fifty Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom, it explains how the use of technology can help broaden students horizons.  I can see in the future that teaching styles will change.  For example teaching could be done on a computer screen in which one teacher could teach a lesson and it can be seen by many students.  All projects and homework will soon be able to be done on computers which will help the use of paper and this will cut down the amount of trees used.  Another great asset for the future of technology would be the ability to talk and interact with people and other students from other areas of the world.  This could give students the ability to learn first hand on what and how it is like to live in another country.  This would greatly benefit students to learn to interact with other cultures because of most business is moving over seas. The future of technology will benefit students and teachers in many ways.

Technology is constantly changing and is being used everyday.  The use of technology, if done correctly, can help bring fun and exciting lessons to the classroom.  The success of the students is very important and if steps can be made to improve their work then it should be done.