Prompt #5: Critical Issues in Technology #13 Whiteboards

The technology issue I will be discussing is about interactive whiteboards. I am going to agree with the yes side, that interactive whiteboards should be in the classrooms. Yes, it may take students a while to come up to the board, but it is the same amount of time if they would walk up to a chalk board. During my junior year at my high school, I had the opportunity to job shadow one of the local second grade teachers. She had a smart board in her classroom and used it with a few of the lessons. I enjoyed how the board was so interactive. She would have vocabulary terms and the students would have to come up to drag the term to the correct definition. If it was correct a star would appear over both the term and the definition. If it was incorrect the term would appear back to where it started. Because of all the fun different games and activities that could be done on an interactive white board, I think they are a very valuable tool to have in every classroom.

Prompt #4

The Gretzky Principle is all about moving towards a new idea instead of chasing after something that has already been used. I did not realize how many different interactive websites there are that teachers could use in their class. I believe that teachers using the new interactive technologies would be the best way to keep the students engaged into the lesson. I believe we should be using online blogs to communicate outside of the classroom as well as sites like the Etherpad. As long as teachers keep updating what technologies they use to have the students interact with each other and to use to learn about the lesson, I believe that the students will always be interested and involved in the activities. One thing teachers need to look out for is the overuse of one technology, because the students would become bored easily if they are always using the same thing day after day.