technology and me.

i grew up in a montessori household, went montessori schools. the education was simple yet complex. i was never told, "you're too young for that." as a result, i was reading dick and jane type books by the age of 3 and already had a serious love of geography and a budding love of world cultures. it was at age 3 that i fell in love with the largest puzzle piece on the map of the world- the USSR. but i digress... expectations were set high yet the tools were simple: wooden puzzles, beads, maps, bells for sound to learn phonetics, etc. teachers direct the children in everyday sort of tasks to facilitate learning. we learned about the biology of plants by growing them. i learned fractions by cooking corn bread and measuring out the corn meal, etc. montessori education is ALL about DOING. it is child directed. children are given choices of what to do, which path to take and are, therefore, very involved in their own education. the classrooms have low stimuli to help keep the children focused on their tasks. i credit my montessori base for my love of learning. i never wanted to skip school. even if i was sick, i would cry if i had to stay home. i truly loved it.





as an adult, looking back i really understand how progressive this method really is. it was totally different from other schools i attended later- which bored me. when i was pregnant, i was talking to my mother about it. she directed me to the absorbent mind by maria montesori. the first part is pretty serious academic writing/ a little boring to read. but the book overall really opened my eyes to my own education and what i wanted for my son.

so i think i come into this "education and technology thing" a bit biased. i love montessori and the constructivist theory because i know what it has done for me. but i wonder, how would maria feel about technology in the classroom? to what extent would she approve of it?

aside form montessori, i have a few concerns:

1. to what end would the technology be used?
2. how much training would it involve for teachers?
3. how much class time would be taken up by teaching computer lessons?
4. is it appropriate for every subject?
5. how much is too much?

i use to teach at a technology magnet in florida. we had lots of nifty gadgets in the classroom. i know that most teachers felt a bit overwhelmed by the amount of technology available to them. it was great that each class had 10 computers and access to an additional 40 in the commons area, but the other stuff was sort of intimidating. i really don't even know what most of it did, let alone what it was called. i ended up using the tools which were both easy to learn and seemed to be natural. like the video overhead projector which was more like a little camera which projected anything, even a notebook or a magazine onto the screen.... or the computer linked up to the projection tv. these tools were great for augmenting the learning process.

but, some of it just seemed pointless. or it was technology for the sake of technology and seemed to make things more confusing. but i wonder if it was the lack of training on the tools in question? maybe there wasn't anything confusing about them, it was just our lack of training and understanding. but then it begs the question- how much time should a teacher spend learning all of this technology? will the school take the hit/ will it be paid and during school hours? if so, how will that effect our classes and lesson plans? at what point is enough enough and at what point is it all too much?

i really don't have the answers to all of these questions right now. i hope that my education at marquette will help sort out some of these questions i have.

as for maria, i think she might be ok with technology, so long as it is kept to a reasonable minimum and is used to augment knowledge. funny, i think so, too. :)