Chapter 6 and 11

Chapter 6

I would prefer to teach in a classroom with more digital technologies.  Technologies in the classroom allow for more innovative and useful education.  Scanners can add photos and changes in text to previously typed items therefor they can enhance the documents.  Digital camera work fast and efficient and allow photos to added into publishing programs just moments after a photo is taken.  Students can use the cameras on field trips to document their experience, in research projects, and to take picture of art projects.  These photos can be put on bulletin board, news letters home, a class website, and many other places thus enhancing education.  Microphones allow music, sound, and spoken words to be stored and altered.  Students can hear their own voices which can help them with fluency and voice inflection.  White boards allow for endless possibilities in classroom lessons.  The screen is large enough for the whole class to see and it allows for more activities to go with lessons and classroom participation.  There is so much technology around us and I think it is important to incorporate this technology into the classroom because it has many benefits.  The more ways to teach and the more activities a teacher has the better.  It keeps things interesting and keeps children engaged. 

Chapter 11

One emerging audio technology is a CD player.  CD players allow for music to be played in the classroom.  Children love to sing and it can even help them learn information.  Playing music allows for more categories of developmental strategies to be incorporate such as kinesthetic.  So a classroom use of a CD player would be to play music and have the children sing along and do movements.  One traditional audio technology is a tape recorder.  Tape recorders allow for speech to be recorded and played back.  Students could record themselves reading and play it back later to listen to themselves to improve fluency.  The teacher could also record him or herself reading and have the child listen to the tape recorder as they read the book alone later.  An example of a traditional visual technology is an overhead projector.  The teacher could print notes on transparencies and they would be projected and the students could take notes while she talks.  An emerging visual technology is a DVD and DVD player.  Teachers can use this in the classroom to show movies or clips of movies in the classroom.  DVDs have the ability to show students real life applications of what they are learning.  Another specific example of this would be a math book that comes with an instructional DVD.  If a student is struggling with a concept he or she can take the DVD home and spend extra time mastering a concept.