Technology Reflection

Technology integration is becoming more and more necessary in education because of the enhanced engagement and learning it provides. When students are in a one-to-one technology classroom it is easy for teachers to create situations for students to create a product that shows their understanding. Teachers can ask students to write a comparison essay based on two articles they find on a topic. Without computers the teachers would have to give students the articles but by the students finding the articles the teachers are assessing their ability to evaluate articles as well as comparing them. It also gives students a plethora of ways to create. Students can easily create images, videos, documents,  blogs, and websites. This easily assesses the student's ability to synthesize. Creating way for students to quickly do these things on pen and paper is much more difficult and many students are less likely to try with pen and paper. This can be a little more difficult if the one-to-one is with the students own technology as not every device they bring will be have the ability to run all the programs the teacher wants to use in order to ask the students to evaluate, synthesize, and analyze. 

If the classroom has enough computer for a group of students to work together on one the teacher can still create these opportunities for students but they students may not be held as accountable for their knowledge because the students are creating something together and it may be easy for some group members to not contribute very much or at all. This is not ideal but is better than if students has no access to a computer. In this case it is much more difficult for teachers to create activities that engage students and allow them to create a product that shows their higher order thinking. 

The budgeting aspect of the matrix was eye-opening because I have used different types of technology during my teaching career but I did not realize how expensive they are. The most surprising to me was the laptop cart. I expected it to be able half of the price it is. It also made me curious about how much a SmartBoard is, which is one of my favorite types of technology for the classroom.