Technology in the Classroom

I have had several experiences with technology in the classroom. My experiences have varied from personally using the technology to actually being instructed with technology (ie: powerpoint, or overhead projections)

One of my most memorable personal use experiences was in high school, it was a web design class and it was one of the classes that everyone wanted to take. I mean who wouldn't want to spend 75 minutes in a computer lab "playing" on the internet?! That's what everyone thought anyway, granted there was a little bit of "playing" most of what we did was work. The programs that we had were Adobe Dreamweaver, and Microsoft Front Page. More then half the class was more comfortable with Front Page so that is what we used to design our web pages. I think that this was a positive experience because it taught us skills that we most likely would not pursue on our own, and it tied in with previous classes we had taken in the computer lab and we could put our skills to the test! Our teacher was very knowledgeable about the software (as well as computers/technology as well) and it made the experience and extremely positive one.

Another experience I had was in a class here at a community college. The professor used PowerPoint as the ONLY instruction method for the class. He basically stood up at the computer and clicked the mouse, occasionally adding some comments of his own. Much of the information was outdated and the links that he attempted to incorporate were broken or completely ridiculous! It was a very negative experience of technology use in the classroom. If a teacher is going to use the technology in their classroom then they need to know how to use it properly and not as their only means of teaching.