I believe there are many ways technology can be used in the classroom, but finding the appropriate form of technology for the grade level I will teach will be the real challenge. I worry there is a lot of expense involved in having a technology-rich classroom. The classroom I was in for field had 4 computers. One was the teacher's computer that was pretty current. One was connected to the projector and was a dinosaur!! It was so slow it would take about 30 minutes to boot up and get to the site you wanted. Two were for student use, also very slow, but donated by the teacher's husband's employer. The neighboring class had about 10 computers and our cooperating teacher could not explain why he had so many when she had so few. She said it was a sore spot in the school.
I believe there can be simple, inexpensive ways of using technology, such as a digital camera. I have one I am hanging onto for my classroom to use. I'd like to see students using a digital camera in new and creative ways. They could create a photo story from their pictures. They could use the simple technology of the video feature on my old camera to create a vidcast. A cell phone can create a podcast. Students could write classroom blogs to keep parents up to date on what the class is learning. Even powerpoints created by students are simple and require no extra expense as long as you having a reasonably modern computer.
There is a long way to go for many schools to be technology-rich. But there are ways to still have an exciting teaching environment without creating a greater personal expense for the teacher.
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