Reflection # 12 Wired Classrooms

Today I found a website devoted to informing about the downfalls and shortcomings of a Wired Classroom. Wired classrooms work to creat technology-enhanced student centered learning environments. The author of the article I read, Jamie Mckenzie argued that the theology behind Wired classrooms is good, however the classrooms are not set up in a way that they are working to accomplish their goal. For instance, she fears that way too much attention, money, and energy is being pored into technology and not into the teacher development of the technology. Mckenzie wrote the following, "Having witnessed four years of efforts in a fully networked school district which offered its students robust access to the Electronic Highway beginning in 1994-95, I can report no miracles, no amazing transformations and no phenomenal shifts in student achievement which can be traced to the advent of these information technologies." While she believes that technology enhanced classrooms have the potential to transform the way students learn and get them further engaged in our new age, she also feels like the wired classrooms need to be set up differently. There needs to be more computers for the students, students should develop their own projects and when they questions the teacher should start a class discussion regarding their questions, and she also believes that the teachers need to be given more education on the use of technology.

So What: In reading this article, it was interesting to get insight into someone who has seen technology incorporated into the classroom, and has taken a negative viewpoint on it's effects. Mckenzie even went as far to compare the technology craze with that of the gold rush, arguing that the only ones benefitting at this time are the companies selling the technology.

Now What: What I took from this article is the fact that when not used effectively in the classroom, technology can become a hinderence to the students. It can take away from their learning time if they are not actually gaining from it. So, I want to be sure that I know how to use it effectively and in a way that furthers my students understand of technology and of the class content.