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AND MEDIA RESOURCES REFLECTION 1

Technology and Media Resources Reflection

Sarah Grady

Regent University

Much of the knowledge known to mankind is able to be accessed at the touch of a button.

Google and the internet has caused a huge eruption of knowledge to be readily available.
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However, this large expansion is relatively recent and only a few generations have grown up

with the type of technology viewed as common place today. This has caused some children to

view adults who are not as in touch with technology as dated or less effective (Levin and Nolan,

2007). Your Introduction to Education textbook refers to the students of present as the “Media

Generation” so utilizing technology in educating students is essential to engaging students who

spend so much of their free time looking at their phone or another device (Powell, 2012, 113).

The two artifacts I chose to include with Technology and Media Resources are a lesson on

writing a nonfiction paragraph and a student sample of one of the paragraphs that were written.

At Landstown Middle School they are fully. embracing technology and every student is

assigned a Chromebook to do schoolwork in and outside of the building during the school year.

Technology is a part of every classroom and is incorporated to many lesson plans. Students are

well versed in technology and it is an important tool to utilize, especially in the English

classroom. Bergin and Bergin urges educators to have students write on the computer as it is

useful for both struggling writers and usually helps produce better writing for all students with

the assistance of Word processor (2012). Teachers at Landstown Middle School are able to see

this impact on a regular basis with the use of the Chromebooks in the classroom.

I chose to include the lesson on Haiti POWER paragraphs because not only does this

lesson use the technology of the Chromebooks to input their sentence, but it also uses the

Promethean board and ActivInspire. Before allowing the students to finish their paragraphs in

their graphic organizer and begin typing into a Google Doc, I modeled a paragraph I had written

and explained my thought process for each portion of the paragraph. I also modeled on the

Promethean Board where they would be submitting their document into Google Classroom. The

tool of Google Classroom is very useful as it allows teachers to create assignments, make
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resources available and make announcements. Teachers can also make comments and help edit

papers in real time to help students improve their writing.

The second artifact I chose to include is a student sample of one of the Haiti POWER

paragraphs. This assessment was graded out of a rubric of 30 points and was one of their first

few writing assignments of the year that was being graded for organization, word choice and

grammar. As sixth grade students, many of them have only written short paragraphs in

elementary school so a large part of teaching writing to these students is equipping them with the

basics of writing. Even though the writing process is very difficult for many of these students,

being able to use their Chromebooks makes it feel easier to them once they have gotten their first

draft completed. This artifact demonstrates how technology can be used for students to grow as

writers.

Although technology can be a distraction with the wide use of smartphones and other

devices it can also be a helpful tool that assists educators with teaching their students. I am a firm

believer that putting pencil to paper is essential to learning the skill of writing, but coupled with

technology it can accelerate the writing process. In the Bergin and Bergin text it states that when

computers were first introduced to the general public a concern was that it would make it harder

for individuals to interact and cause them to not develop social skills. However, with technology

such as computers can actually connect people easier and aid learning (2012).

References

Bergin, C. A., & Bergin, D. A. (2012). Child and Adolescent Development in Your Classroom.

Boston, MA, US: Cengage Learning.

Levin, J., & Nolan, J. F. (2007). Principles of Classroom Management: A Professional

Decision-Making Model. Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc.

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Powell, S. D. (2012). Your Introduction to Education: Explorations in Teaching. New York, NY:

Pearson Education, Inc.