Philosophy

Throughout the unit I was introduced to several different forms of new and old technology. I learned that technology can be extremely beneficial for teachers and their students. I really like the blog because it allows for students to immediately write their responses to their homework and readings. It is very easy to forget overnight what one has read, so being able to immediately respond is very beneficial to the outcome of the response. This also helps to remind them of the reading the following day, when they read their responses they suddenly remember much more about the readings. So I definitely will use this in my future classrooms, because I want better responses from all of my students. The only idea I would have to be aware of is that some students may not have access to computers from home so I will have to allow class-time to use the internet.
I also really like the idea of bringing in videos to relate to the novel that we read. This is one that is used is many different classrooms but I strongly believe that is helps the students see the literature in comparative situations. They can compare the movie to the literature and it shows modernized versions of classical literature. I really like modernizing literature to students because it creates a more realistic situation for them. So this is another commonly used technique that I will undoubtedly implement in my classrooms.
There are some other views that I learned from this unit as well. I do think that we have to use technology in moderation or else it could start to penalize our students. We do not want them to limit themselves to computers and internet where they are not using books and libraries. Books are so important and I do not want to see the future disregarding books for computers. I also do not want students to be so consumed with technology that is takes away from the main focus of discussion. I want them to learn the literature and ideas surrounding the unit, I only want the technology to help guide the lessons, but I do not want them to be the entire lesson. So my views on technology have not changed throughout the course of this unit that much. I still believe technology is a great thing but it something we have to monitor and not let take over our entire lives.