Technology Takes Over

I really enjoy teaching, and part of me wonders if schools that have a lot of technology in them, how much are the teachers really teaching. If computers can teach us so much, and we use software in classrooms, why would they need teachers? Also, could this be done at home? After thinking about these questions I realized a couple of things. Many parents work throughout the week, so many students would not be watched over. You can never be sure that your student is actually doing the work, because the parent could easily do it for the child if it was on the computer. Lastly, kids need social skills. Teachers are still there to guide them, and the teachers have to teach the students how to use the software. Also, if a student does not understand something, as a teacher, you need to help. A teacher must also have good classroom management skills so that the classroom does not turn into chaos. I think technology in schools is a wonderful thing, if it is used in the correct manner.

First Thoughts of Technology in the Classroom

Technology in the classroom can be a good thing, but it can also be a not so good thing. On the plus side, it can help students for the future and make them more profitable for a good job. Students and Teachers usually like to stay up to date. The down side is that technology costs a lot of money, and if there are a lot of students who do not have food at home, feeding them is more important than being up to date on technology. Technology can sometimes require teachers to get training which takes time and money. Students might not be good in spelling if they all have i-pads. One of my fellow teacher assistant friends said that all her students have an i-pad in the classroom and it auto-corrects their spelling, therefore the all do really bad on their spelling test each time they take one.

Here is a link to another blog that talks about the good and the bad of technology:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/parentingcom/technology-in-the-classroom_b_2456450.html

Read 180

I am currently teacher assisting in a 5th grade language arts and math classroom. My cooperating teacher just got trained to teach this new reading program called Read 180. It is a program created by Scholastic. We have about twenty-one kids, and there are three different groups, each sharing similar reading levels I believe. For twenty minutes there is whole classroom instruction. The students then go into groups of seven and have three rotations that are twenty minutes each. At the end, they come back as a class for ten minutes. One station is silent reading, and sometimes the students can record themselves reading, and play it back to themselves. One station is a small group station with the teacher. They go through something called rBooks. The last station is where the students work on computers and go through the Read 180 program. There are the reading zone, success zone, spelling zone, word zone, and writing zone. The students are just now learning how the whole program works. I am interested in seeing what the software will be like because each zone has something different, and it is all through the computer. Each student's progress can be viewed by the teacher, and the teacher can hear them when they record themselves reading. I think this reading program is great because it has all different components. Whole group instruction, small group, individual work, technology incorporated, and students still get to hand write some things. Some of the zones seem better than others to me, or more helpful for students, so I guess I will just have to wait and see how it goes.

Read more about Read 180 by clicking the link below.
http://read180.scholastic.com/