Reflection on Educational Technology (K-12)

We didn't get a computer at home until I was in high school! The thing is, technology was used fairly often in my schools. Mostly computers were used for fun in elementary school. We had free time to play games sometimes, and I remember playing Oregon Trail in the computer lab. We learned word processing on really old Macs in the lab every few years. Technology was available but not necessarily used very often. It seemed like an extra part of the curriculum--it wasn't integrated very well.
In junior high we had access to more computers, but it was hard to use them because so many other classes also wanted to use them. I remember that we had laptops that could only do word processing to use in English classes, and sometimes in science we'd do simulations. There was one computer lab for the whole school, and the media center only contained books.
I went to a relatively new high school that had lots of technology available for student use. Originally there was a computer lab for every four classrooms, but the computers were in common areas. Students ended up breaking them, so by the time I graduated there weren't quite so many labs. But the media center had several computers (including one classroom lab in the library), plus there were a few other labs throughout the school. We used the labs quite often to do research and create presentations using PowerPoint. In science classes we typed up lab reports and analyzed data using Excel. I never used digital cameras or anything like that, but it may have been available. By that time, most teachers assumed that students knew as much or more as they did about technology, which definitely wasn't true in my case! I appreciated the chance to learn through experience, though. I wish I could have had more instruction--I know the basic functions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, but I know there's a lot more to those programs.
Most of what I've learned about technology has been at college. As an EDM major, the majority of my media classes include the application of technology in schools, at least in some small way.
This semester I hope to learn some ways to include technology in schools, especially programs that I should purchase for students to use. Media specialists are often looked to as technology experts, and are in charge of providing up-to-date technology. I hope this class gives me some great ideas and teaches me how to use some of these technologies, such as digital camera and video, and how to create multimedia programs that go beyond the basic functions of PowerPoint.