PT+Technology+Vision

= Coming to teaching later in life has given me a different perspective on technology in the classroom than many younger students. When I attended high school and college, technology was in its infancy and I was exposed to very little. After twenty years in business I returned to college where I experienced all the new technology being used in education and had to adapt quickly. The incorporation of technology in the classroom is imperative to the success of today's learners. Preparing the classroom setting to incorporate technology will increase the students interest in the course content. My goal is to incorporate the most current technology available including smartphones. To this point the technology I've used in the classroom consists of powerpoints on a smartboard and student smartphones for search results and question response. Youtube videos are an excellent resource for my classroom. I teach social studies content specifically government and American history. I also like to incorporate the use of lessons from Khan academy for a different perspective on many of the content topics we cover. My vision would be for the technology to be as much of the norm in my classroom and the district in general as handouts and textbooks were in the past. Printed textbooks would be eliminated in place of online versions that are more current and updated. Ultimately a larger vision would be for the students I teach to leave Stow High School with the capability to move to the next stage of their lives be it college or career with a basic working knowledge of current technology. =