Journal #1 (ONE): Do Your Teachers Need Personal Trainers?

Owens, Aileen M. (2009). Do your teachers need personal trainers?. Learning and Leading With Technology, Retrieved 07/15/09, from http://www.iste.org/

This article is about providing training to teachers on ways that they can integrate technology in their classroom. Technology will help to evolve old lesson plans while making certain classroom activities easier for teachers and more exciting for students. The article describes a partnership that was formed between the Duquesne University Instructional Technology Department and the Mt. Lebanon school district in Pittsburgh in which Duquesne University would identify students with particular technology skills and those students would come to a particular school in the Mt. Lebanon school district and help teachers boost their technological skill set. These students would help teachers create lesson plans that would integrate technology into the teachings. The teachers would get technology help and the intern students would gain much needed experience with lesson plan design and student teacher training. Sounds like a win-win situation for the college students and the teachers.

Is it really a good idea to integrate so much technology into the classroom?
This is something that I have been thinking about even before I began the teaching program while still a student at San Diego State. If there is so much reliance on technology and having students use technology aren’t we just making lazy students and teachers? I have been tutoring for over a year now and can’t tell you frustrating it is to hear students say “why do this by hand, I can just use a calculator.” Students have become lazy and too reliant on technology. With the reliance on technology to complete assignments we are just alienating and making it hard for the student without access to a computer to complete assignments and thereby creating a classroom that is not equitable. I personally think there is too much reliance on technology.

Is this a good program and should more colleges create partnerships with school districts to run a plan like this?
I do think that this benefits schools tremendously by giving future teachers training in creating lesson plans and experience in front of a class while also helping older teachers become more tech-savvy and streamline their teaching practices.