Chapter 4

Upon finishing this chapter my initial response is primarily about “Standards”. There are national and state standards as well as pedagogical standards and now I have been introduced to technology standards. Am I missing any? Don’t get me wrong; I wholeheartedly believe that it is not only important to have such standards, but also to aim my lessons to incorporate these standards because it will improve the education and well-being of my students. At this moment I am just a little overwhelmed with how many standards teachers and I have to follow. Although in the following paragraph I question how much teachers are responsible for teaching students about technology I do feel that it is important. Even as a current college student and a young adult in the midst of the Information Age I often feel behind my peers as far as my knowledge of technology is concerned. As I think to the future I am curious if current education standards will one day merge with the technology standards introduced in this chapter to become one standard.


My question regarding chapter four is fairly general: To what extent is each individual teacher responsible for educating their students about technology. Understandably many schools don’t include a class that aids the students in learning about technology and how it can enhance their education and many curriculums don’t support such a class. I completely agree it is my responsibility to not only use various forms of technology in my classroom and my students must be knowledgeable of how to use it as well. However, how much time do I take away from particular subject knowledge to teach about a certain technology?

Since I am working towards being a future English educator this particular chapter was filled with specific examples of how I can incorporate technology into my classroom. Thus far in my pre-service education I have struggled with incorporating useful technology into my lesson plans. The book says you “want to use technology when it accomplishes something that you could not otherwise do with more conventional tools” (pg. 58) but prior to this chapter I could not strongly identify how to use technology other than the occasional PowerPoint presentation or media clip to aid in educating students. The internet allows students to conduct research on their own and bring it to the attention of the class in a quick and efficient manner. (Naturally students have already been educated on proper internet searching.) I particularly enjoyed the lesson plan where the students were asked to find illustrations or cartoons of Mark Twain. For students who benefit from visual learning, especially to get their imagination going, this is a great lesson plan.