Article-Technology and Education

By adding technology into the classrooms, this would put the teachers in a position where they are forced to change how they have been teaching for many years.  The teachers are unsure about the adding of the technology as are those paying for the machines to be put into the classrooms.  In some of the research it was found that there were two barriers for “the integration of the technologies: first-order barriers extrinsic to teachers (access, time, support, resources, training) and second-order barriers intrinsic to teachers (attitudes, beliefs, practices, resistance)” (Page 10).  The teachers are in need of training themselves to better instruct the students, in turn will cost time and money.  No matter the information provided, the question that always comes up is if it will benefit the students in the long run and will the teachers actually utilize the technology provided to them or will it just become something thrown in the corner to collect dust.  The instructional technology that has been given to our schools now gives our students the ability to use real life situations to retain information, browse the Internet for any questions they may have about any subject and push our teachers to provide the best possible instruction to the future of our world.

With all of the research, all of the second guessing, all of the questioning about how technology will affect the teachers and students in the class room.  Fourteen years after this paper was written, technology has put its place into our schools, homes and lives.  Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad but in this situation it is a tremendous benefit to our students and teachers.  I did find this article interesting because of the questioning and the wondering if technology would benefit our schools prior to adding it into the curriculum.  I think for future teachers to be able to look back on the way teaching was conducted when this article was written would give them a way to add some of the past with some of the future.  I am not sure that this particular article connected to our class but we have been able to take classes online instead of having to go into a classroom.  No connection to my background experiences and yes I would recommend this article to others to show the process of adding technology into classrooms.