My first experience with technology was when I was in the first grade and my class would be taken to the lab at least one hour a day to learn how to type on the program Mavis Beacon. I remember looking forward to going to the lab and spending that one hour trying to improve on my writing speed to compete with the other students in the class. It was always a fun experience for me to be in that class, learning how to type. As a reward for typing so well, we would be allowed to play on of the many games on Mavis Beacon which made the experience that much more enriching.
Since those days in the first grade, I have always loved technology. I think being able to integrate it into the classrooms makes learning that much more fun and fascinating for students. Using technology as a source for finding authentic materials to use in the classroom and as a tool for communication for students is essential in the modern world that we live in. As the video "Learning to change - Change to learn" states, "We have to accept, as educators, that technology is not really a choice. It has created a world. It's just not here to help you teach traditional subjects, it has invented, it has emerged a completely new environment." Students are so accustomed to using technology outside of the classroom for many aspects and have attained such insight and knowledge on the use of it that it would ignorant for us as teachers to not take those skills that they already own and incorporate them into our lessons.
As a future foreign language teacher, I feel that technology would be so beneficial for my future students to learn more about the cultures all around the world. Since I will be mainly teaching Spanish and Italian, I could use technology to have students communicate with Hispanic and Italian students around the world in order to get a first hand view of their culture, just as the Friends and Flags creator Karen Eini mentioned she did with her students in the ASCD Educational Leadership Article. Even something as simple as using the Google search engine to learn more about the countries and cultures they are studying can be more beneficial and intriguing to the students rather than them just hearing it from me. I believe that if students have the ability to look for information on their own and learn about it in a way that is captivating to them, they will be able to not only acquire more information but remember it as well due to the fact that it was something that they enjoyed doing by themselves.
