My Philosophy of Technology Integration

Major technological advancements continue to be made and have taken on a

fundamental and important role in education as evidenced by our current situation in

dealing with COVID-19. Thus, we must familiarize ourselves with a wide spectrum of

remote learning platforms which aid in effective instruction.

In my own experiences of providing ongoing support during remote teaching,

Google Classroom and Zoom have become our key means of communication between us

and our students. As more time passes, we continue to miss seeing our students’ smiling

faces and working with them on a daily basis. Although face to face interactions in

person are ideal, that is not temporarily possible. Starting our daily morning meetings at

9:05 via Zoom allows us to stay connected and maintain the consistency of instruction.

As challenges are presented to both students and teachers, we are encouraged to become

more resourceful.

Across my time as a student teacher, I have found educational applications like

IXL, XtraMath, Newsela, Mystery Science, Typing Club and TrueFlix to be beneficial

materials that supplement my lessons. For instance, students can practice and strengthen

their math skills by working through a variety of problem types on platforms like IXL or

XtraMath. Likewise, they can easily continue to develop their reading comprehension

skills by working on programs such as Newsela. This is one of my favorite online

resources as it automatically implements some basic differentiation measures. Questions

will be generated based on the student’s performance of previous questions. So, they can
become more challenging or easier according to the student’s current ability level.

Similarly, resources like Mystery Science, Typing Club and TrueFlix create a fun and

exciting online platform that engages students as well. Without a doubt, these resources

are truly versatile and possibilities with how they can be integrated into the curriculum

are endless.

With that in mind, I would also like to stress the importance of finding a much-

needed balance between the use of technology inside of the classroom. It is very easy for

any educator to get caught up in the never-endling list of online resources that we can see

being very useful with our students. However, through these times where state-of-the-art

technology is constantly being generated, it is crucial for us to not forget the true power

of one-on-one, small group and whole class discussions. These personal interactions help

us, as teachers and mentors, not only foster meaningful relationships with our students,

but they also allow us to adapt our instructional methods based on our students’

individual needs. For these reasons, I strongly support the integration of technology

within the classroom when it is supplemented with a balance of true hands-on

experiences as well.