The first concept in chapter one that caught my eye are the statistics of children and technology. I have an 8 year old son who is considered to be a part of the "iGeneration". I monitor his technology consumption carefully because I strongly believe that children today need technology breaks. Page 3 of the textbook states that in 2010 "US children under age 5 were watching nearly four hours of television every day". It also states that "by the time youngsters entered second grade, about 70% played video games and used the Internet on a daily basis". In my opinion that is too much exposure to television on a daily basis. According to the table on page 4 of the textbook TV content is the area with the largest amount of hours consumed daily. As a future teacher I feel that knowing most of my students will be leaving my classroom to sit in front of a television for the rest of the day will impact how I do things. It will be important to me that I make sure the content and how I teach it are showcasing technology in a positive manner.
The concept of having a technology-based learning environment outside of the classroom was also interesting to me and is a concept that I have some experience in. My son is in 2nd grade and his teachers have always taken advantage of teacher websites. They post links to games for extra practice and updates for parents. I have found that extra practice outside of the classroom, using technology, can be tremendously helpful. While I was taking a spanish course a few semesters ago we were required to use a program called En Vivo. I have attached a video explaining how the program works.
It was amazing being able to meet with a coach outside of the classroom each week.
The final concept to catch my interest was the section on technology-based teaching tools. I found this especially interesting because I recently found out about an amazing program that is being used in a friends classroom. Each student has an ipad (paid for by parents and school together) and the students use an app called Seesaw http://web.seesaw.me/. A student can record themselves reading and/or writing and it automatically sends an update to the parents allowing them to see and listen to their child during the school day. I believe that the program is great for a teacher to utilize while they are working one on one or in small groups. Having tools like computers and tablets are beneficial today as they can be used in numerous ways to assist in the classroom.
Resources:
"EN VIVO." En Vivo. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.
Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
"Home." Seesaw. Web. 24 Jan. 2016.
