Last week I spent two days in my second grade classroom for field experience hours for my EDU270 class. Ultimately, I realized that I am far from tech-savy and I need to learn how to be a little more friendly with technology. At Fred C. Underhill Elementary school, right down the street, there is one laptop cart for the entire school which holds over three hundred students. I found it to be a bit strange so I asked the teacher a few more questions about it. She continued to tell me that the one laptop cart in the school is actually stationed in her classroom. Due to lack of computers, none of the teachers ever want to use the laptop cart because there are not enough laptops in it for each student to be able to use them. Mrs. Naboa, the teacher that I work with, told me that not only are there not enough resources, but the teacher's don't know how to use most of what they have to begin with. Mrs. Noboa had to fight for months in order to get three desktop computers in her classroom. She enjoys using Google drive and other features that are beneficial and productive in her lesson plans. When children finish their main and most important assignments, they are allowed to use the laptops of computers in order to play or work on their Google assignments. She told me that most of the time she likes to keep the assignments that include technology creativity based. I think that its a very good thing that Mrs. Noboa is concerned about intergrating technology into her students every day lives. Although she is still learning, she understands that technology is growing more and more every day, and ultimately it will eventually become bigger than we imagine. The growing generation will know more about technology and how to use it than ever before. I'm starting to realize this as I am behind myself. The second graders that I am working with know more about Google than I do, which scares me.

My Experience With Technology

     I come from a small town called Seekonk in southern Massachusetts. In my town, we were always given the opportunity to integrate technology with our learning experience.

     In elementary school, we had a couple of labs and a library with one side dedicated to computers. Back then, we had some Dells but we mostly had the chunky green Mac desktops. Starting in third grade, we would go to the library one or two days a week in order to practice our typing. For about an hour and a half, we would play games on the computers that taught us how to type correctly and how to place our fingers on all of the keys. I remember always looking forward to these types of days and I am grateful that we were able to start learning with technology at such a young age. I believe that this is one of the best practices that we used with technology because it introduced and taught us how to start using a computer properly.

      In middle school we continued to use desktop computers but we also had a few laptop carts. In every classroom we had three desktops that were against the wall. There were never enough for the whole class so we didn't use those often. Eventually we started bringing the laptop carts into the classroom more, so the school decided to take all of the laptops and put them into another computer lab. We had a class called "tech ed" that taught us how to use different types of applications on the computers. However, throughout my schooling we usually only used the computers for web research and website browsing rather than using the applications to their full extent.

      Once I got to high school we started using the laptops a lot more. Teachers assigned a lot of assignments such as web quests or research assignments that required us to go online during class. Laptop carts were in the library at all times and if we signed in, we could use them whenever we wanted. During lunch or free period, a lot of people would go into the library and work on homework. I don't ever remember a time that our technology did not work. If anything, sometimes the network would be a little slow but that was about it. Once I was a junior, the district brought iPads into play. Up until the time I graduated, we didn't really use them because none of the teachers knew how to. In this time it seemed as if they were only there for fun. In the two years that they were in the school I only used them once in astronomy class. By now, I hope that they are being put to good use and the teachers are learning more about technology so that it can be better used in the classroom one day. I look forward to becoming better with technology so that I can help guide my students in the right direction as well. 

What brought me to SNHU

I applied to Southern New Hampshire University at the end of my junior year in high school. When I visited this campus something about it felt so right for me compared to all of the other schools that I had already toured. When I got my acceptance letter I was extremely happy and knew that I had already made up my mind on committing. I originally came here to major in psychology knowing that I wanted to help people who were "different," especially children. After a few psychology classes I realized that I took interest in the subject but didn't know exactly what I would do with my degree. After a lot of thinking, I realized that teaching elementary and special education was right for me. With my goals of becoming a teacher and helping children grow, I have become extremely inspired to do my best in order to, one day, help change lives and help kids love themselves before they judge themselves by societies "normalities."