EDLD 5364 Week 4 Post

I was encouraged by the videos this week. I enjoy working on projects and utilizing real world situations. However, I also realize that I have a bit of an advantage over the core teachers in that I have the flexibility to work on projects and integrate a variety of digital media for longer periods of time. This allows me to create differentiated instruction for my students as well. I do agree with one of the speakers on the video who commented that as long as we are teaching to a state mandated test, we will not have the opportunity to service our students with more real world thinking and projects. Some of the reading this week discussed what technology training should be and what it should not be. I selected a quote for my discussion that rang very true for me and for my campus. We are overwhelmed with the latest and greatest toy, when in all actuality, we would simply like our technology to work and be dependable. I personally spent 30 minutes in one 50 minute class period troubleshooting network issues on my students' netbooks. This totally interrupted my students learning and threw everything off. I had to ask my other students to log off of their computers and read their library books while attended to the problems with the netbooks. Unfortunately, this scenario is not unusual. This same thing will have at least 3 times a week. The students are trying to learn to troubleshoot these issues themselves; however, it still cuts into instruction time.