Observing Technology in a classroom

Observing Technology in a classroom

The technology I observed was in a Photoshop class and it was late in the school year that I observed. The students already knew what was expected of them and just started working in the beginning of the class period. It was set up so there were a few deadlines, but for the most part the students worked at their own pace and the deadlines were more guidelines so they don’t get too far behind. They all had a book, and they were expected to follow the directions step by step and edit different types of photos. This is how the students gained the initial understanding of Photoshop. Their final was to create a game board using all of the concepts. This was a very independent classroom setting, there was a paraeducator walking around to keep the students on task, and help them read the text when they were struggling. In my opinion I didn’t think this was the best way to teach Photoshop, at least not how I would learn anything. But in the teacher’s defense, I don’t know how the beginning of the year was run, so I don’t know if it was always as I observed.

 I would have liked to see her use a smart board or something where she can demonstrate the lesson, and the students can play around with the new skills that they learned that day, or something more along those lines.  Then she could be there for questions if the students had any.

Another technology that I observed students using was their cell phones. I know in most classroom cell phones are frowned upon; but I have seen cell phone used wisely in the classroom. If cell phones are just used for researching and educational purposes. They can be a great resource. As long as they are not spending all of their time chatting with friends then I don’t see the harm. Maybe you could make a social media page for the class. This way when the students are on your page they wouldn’t really be off task. They wouldn’t feel they need to check Facebook as much. And they could have an educational use for social media.

I think the biggest downfall of technology in schools is under education. There are so many useful tools we can use, but what I observed is students teaching themselves for the most part. The teachers that taught technology let the book do the work instead of teaching each skill. That needs to change, in my opinion.