Integrating Technology

When it comes to integrating technology into a lesson, whether old or new, it definitely brings some new energy and excitement for teaching it.  The same can be said whenever an exciting new idea jumps into a teacher's head on how to teach a concept to his or her students.  For me, I feel that there is most-definitely a reason to keep a tight grasp on my level of excitement.  Control...plain and simple, control.  Call it paranoia, call it negativity, call it realistic, call whatever you want, but when you are up in front of 24 students and things aren't working, you will understand where I may be coming from. 

The first main area where control becomes a concern is with the reliability of our technology.  Planning a whole lesson, activity, or project around technology could be risky.  Internet connections, log-in issues, and software updates always seem to pop up around us and take time to fix (sometimes too long).  So the question when planning is, "How much "back-up" planning do I need to do if something doesn't work?"  By no means do I want to double-plan a lesson "just-in-case" something doesn't work, however, there have been more than enough times when things aren't working correctly and I felt as though I was standing there with a big spotlight shining on me while my brain quickly decided how we were going to switch gears.  It isn't that this is always a big deal, we are teachers, and this is what we do.  However, looking ahead at my class for next year, and knowing that I have several students who have needs that require a good deal of modification and who also don't always do well with sudden changes, it makes me a bit more cautious...or maybe nervous.

Being able to control things/fix things when issues come into play is the second area where control comes into play.  I completely understand that I am not the only teacher in my district, and while I may think that the issues that I may be currently experiencing are the MOST important and should be taken to the top of the to-do list, in the big picture, may not be.  But to a teacher who has spent time planning and organizing, prepping and building up his/her own excitement for the lesson, an unexpected technical issue can be a HUGE deal.  One of the current frustrations at our school is that the issues that seem to impact students the most, are put on the back burner, while the problems that, while very important, don't impact them as much, get taken care of with more immediate attention.  This is not to sound like a whiny teacher, but rather, one that would like a little information on why some of the problems that seem simple to solve, seem to take forever to actually get solved. 

I may have digressed a bit from the original question, and aside from the impression that the tone of this post may have given off, I really enjoy using and having my students use technology whenever possible and find it to supply great benefit to student learning.