Tech+Integration


 * My thoughts on Technology Integration**

I saw several videos on Edutopia.org but the one that spoke out to me the most was the one regarding the Khan Academy. Salman Khan first started Khan Academy by tutoring his cousin online. When more people needed help, he decided to offer a web-based video online “school” complete with exercises for the students to do. Sal said he wants to liberate the classrooms from a lecture based curriculum where teachers are micro-managed, teaching only to tests by also liberating teachers and allowing them to do what they do best: teach! I appreciated Mr. Khan’s desire to help teachers educate children in a well rounded way, by allowing these videos to serve as a backdrop, giving the students the opportunity to study a bit at home, thus allowing the teacher to facilitate more communication in the classroom.

I hope to fully integrate technology in my classroom because I like the idea of moving away from lectures. The human adult brain can only pay attention for 17 minutes! That’s not a very long time, so imagine how little time we have children’s attention for! If I’m lecturing at the front of the classroom, I’ll lose my students quickly, with them not learning and this is not acceptable to me. I would love my students to watch videos from Khan’s Academy and then us being able to talk about them the next day, getting into the “meat and taters” of the subject, but using a more hands on approach. I would also love to be able to have a Blackboard system like Forest Lake Elementary has, thus giving parents not only a better view of how their children are doing but to also hold them just as responsible for their children’s learning.