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Dana Morgan
Technology Tools for Teachers
Week 3 Assignment-Technology Teaching Philosophy
Morgan Teaching Philosophy
My own technology teaching philosophy stems from the kind of teacher I strive to be;
which is a positive role-model that guides students and empowers them to become self-directed
learners. I listen without judgment, hold each student to high expectations regardless of their
background or ability, and maintain a limitless supply of compassion. I use technology to teach,
guide, and strengthen lessons for students. I am a proponent for technology in the classroom
beginning in kindergarten so that students become familiar with how to use various modes for a
variety of purposes. Once students become comfortable using different types of technology, I
then use it to differentiate for the diverse needs of the learners in my classroom.
Teaching a first grade classroom has allowed me to see the importance of implementing
various types of technology into my everyday routine. In their book Technology and Society
(2007), Haugen and Musser include a comment from author Susan Smith Nash which sums up
my viewpoint about teaching students when they begin their education in kindergarten.
When they download and edit movies and music, play games, and communicate with
friends, tech-savvy kids are problem-solving, recognizing patterns, increasing hand-eye
coordination, cataloguing events, determining cause-effect relationships, predicting
sequences, and more. (Haugen & Musser, 2007, p. 94)
Children are going to use technology in some form or other; therefore it is beneficial if I am
teaching them to use it properly and for educational purposes so that they can get more out of it
than just playing games or watching movies. If teachers embrace using technology and allow

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their students to see what they can learn from it, then the students will become more adept at
using technology for the right reasons.
The main reason for using technology in my classroom is to develop a stronger
student/teacher relationship. Just as Anrig (2014) believes in the article Will Technology Improve
Teacher-Student Relationships, or Hurt Them, the results will show that collaboration between
students and teachers in the use of technology-rather than students working on their devices by
themselves while teachers stand back and track their progress- is what will lead to real student
learning (para. 14). I believe that working together with my students using their technology has
created a more open and trusting classroom. We begin our day using calendar math from a
program created by our school district. Students are chosen using fair sticks to uncover certain
components of the day of the week, month, year, etc. on our promethean board, which is then
followed by other areas such as reading. I created a game similar to wheel of fortune for my
students to figure out what the high-frequency words we will be reading in our story. They are
again chosen by using fair sticks to come up and try to figure out a word. Technology is also
used to access YouTubes video clips where we watch sight word songs by Have Fun Teaching.
This gets my students up out of their chairs, spelling and learning words that they use on a daily
basis. All of these components provide interactive and hands-on learning through the use of
technology to work together as a classroom. Towards the end of the year, we also use our
computers to complete a group research project about animals. Students access Pebble Go,
Discovery United Streaming, and other resources to learn about animal classification, habitats,
and survival. My students appreciate that I take the time to create lessons using the technology
we have. By doing things together on our Promethean board, we work together to solve
problems, have fun, and learn by using technology.

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Since we have such an open classroom, I am able to modify the usage of our technology
to meet the needs of all of my diverse learners. When I created some of the games that we play, I
always have various levels of learning built in. This provides options without drawing attention
to the fact that there is a difference between students and the educational levels that they are on.
One thing I hope to use in the future is the math app created by Front Row, which gives students
the opportunity to work at their own levels while completing math activities. I am also working
on having the Accelerated Reading program implemented in our school right now. This program
by Renaissance provides an avenue for students to increase their comprehension skills by reading
books of varying skill levels and then taking computer tests on the reading material. It allows
students to increase their level similar to a video game. These programs remind me of what was
written by Boser (2013), in the article Are Schools Getting a Big Enough Bang for Their
Education Technology Buck? He writes that technology can also create greater personalization
of educational material (para. 8). I believe that there are no limits on the personalization of
educational material using technology. It provides infinite amounts of learning potential because
of the ability of the programs to reach so many different types of learners. The beauty of this is
that only the teacher knows what each level every learner is on, so discretion, as well as
individualized learning for every student is accomplished.
Technology is a must in our educational environment. As educators, we have to find a
way to embrace it and implement it so that our students are learning how to use it at a young age
properly. This sets the stage for future use throughout every students academic career. Once this
is accomplished, teachers can modify how they use it to meet the needs of every learner on an
individualized basis.

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References
Anrig, G. (2013). Will technology improve teacher-student relationships, or hurt them?
Retrieved September 2, 2014, from HechingerEd Blog site:
http://hechingered.org/content/will-technology-improve-teacher-student-relationships-orhurt-them_6405/
Boser, U. (2013). Are schools getting a big enough bang for their education technology buck?
Retrieved August 24, 2014, from Center for American Progress:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2013/06/14/66485/are-schoolsgetting-a-big-enough-bang-for-their-education-technology-buck/
Haugen, D., & Musser, S. (Eds.). (2007). Technology and society. Detroit: Thomson Gale.