Teaching the Future- A vision of students today

http://redwitness.blogspot.com/
http://brittneynow.blogspot.com/
http://atejenniper.blogspot.com/

After reading the above blogs, I started to wonder just how much technology is going to affect my classroom and my students. Technology today is growing faster than ever. Students could not imagine their lives without video games, ipods, the internet, or Facebook. To be an effective teacher and to relate to my students, I will have to learn the new technologies out there and keep their interest. All the blogs I've read mentioned something about students now being visual learners, and if you don't incorporate something visual in your lessons, you're not going to be the best teacher you can be. I especially liked the idea that students that I will be teaching are going to be learning things that I don't even know exist yet, that I'm going to be preparing them for jobs that don't exist yet. It's a crazy thought.

When I think about it, some of the teachers I have had were trained to teach before the internet was even invented. I even had a teacher who refused to use computers to calculate our grades, although it may be a beneficial time saver. Although I believe I recieved a quality education that integrated some technology, I know that if my teachers made an effort to use technology and show me possibilities other than research, I would have been better prepared for college. I hope that in my future classroom that I will be able to incorporate technologies- math technologies- to show students the endless possibilities. Programs like mathmatica and geometer's sketchpad will help tremendously with visualizations. I am also a little nervous about too much technology, however, because I have known many students without the confidence to do math in their head because calculators were always available. So I hope to learn new technology as they present themselves, to show my students the wide world available to them, to consolidate their knowledge by showing them visualizations and real world applications, and all within a balance of having students still think for themselves.