Concerns About Technology

While completing my Technology in Education course I am learning many new technologies to incorporate into my classroom. I am getting more comfortable with these new technologies, but I do still have concerns about using Internet technologies in my classroom. The biggest issue would be that it won’t work. We have a lot of websites at my school that are blocked for the students and teachers. I can not work on Internet assignments at home because the sites that I can access at home are different than the sites that I have access to at school. Some things at school are blocked for students only. I really have a problem with that because I could try out a Website on my computer at school and then make up a really great lesson. The students then go to access the sites and they are blocked from them. This is very frustrating because of the amount of time that I spend planning and then the lesson doesn’t work. The other issue that I might have with using new Internet technologies is that sometimes our server goes down, it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. I then have a room full of students and a lesson that isn’t going to work. I always have to have a backup plan.

I think I could alleviate some of these concerns by being prepared. I will make sure I try the web sites out prior to presenting the lesson and also have a student try the site out to ensure that they will have access to it. If a site is blocked for the students I can talk to my technology coordinator at school to get it off of the blocked list. I just have to send him an email with the URL and why I want to use the site and he will usually take it off of the blocked list. I will also have a lesson that I can use in case the Internet does go down, this will help alleviate my concerns of a class full of students and no access to the computers.