Week 3 Reflection for EDLD 5364

We are living in a digital generation and often times we forget that our students are engaged from the time they wake in the morning until they close their eyes at night. In two of the videos that we watched the students that were interviewed stated that the first thing they do when they wake in the morning is work with some kind of technology. Whether it be with a video camera working on making videos of their hockey stroke or simply checking their email and social networking sites. We must keep our students motivated in school by using technology. We are teaching a digital generation and it is our job to welcome that technology into our room. One of the “Top 10 Tips for Using Technology in the Classroom” is to use the student’s gadgets (Picardo, 2009). What a great way to use technology that is free and accessible to you in the classroom. “As our knowledge of the distributed processing in the brain grows, we know that students do not have one kind of intelligence or one way of learning they have many (Meyer, 2002). Students learn in a variety of ways and we technology is a way to capitalize on the way that students learn. Often times our students know more about technology that we do and they can teach us how to use the technology to help them learn. 21st century learners are not afraid of technology we have seen they often “jump into technology without an instructional manual” (Edutopia, 2009). We need more of that fearless approach to using technology in our classrooms because it can be beneficial to all our students.
Picardo, J. (2009, October 5). Top 10 Tips for Using Technology in teh Classroom. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from youtube: http://www.youtube/watch?v=xiiste0bunk
Meyer, D. H. (2002). Teaching Every Student in a Digital Age: Universal Design for Learning. ASCD.
Edutopia. (2009, October 5). Welcome to the Digital Generation. Retrieved October 5, 2009, from Edutopia.org: http:www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-poject-overview-video