Week 4: Reforming Education with Technology

Teaching with new eyes is a wonderful little article about integrating technology into the classroom. Like so many other teachers, Mr. Snyder was trying to come up with a way to use technology and integrate job skills into his classroom in a way that would link such training to the standards. This was difficult for him. Then he attended the 1998 Nevada Milken Educators' conference and everything changed. Mr. Snyder began transforming his classroom into a living lesson. In which he and his students would make connections by internalizing their ideas.

I thought that Mr. Snyder's ideas were very interesting and valuable and I agree that we must begin to transform education into a part of the fabric of peoples lives. We need to reach out to our students and encourage them to think and to share their thoughts. By encouraging students to begin thinking openly about lessons and classroom activities we create a cohesive cooperative learning environment in which students can gain valuable learning skills.

Mr. Snyder stated that computers and technology are a part of the fabric of young peoples lives. However, in lower socioeconomic school districts many young people are being left behind. Their classrooms often do not have computers for them to use and very few of these students have computers or any electronics at home. So there seems to be a great divide that is taking place amongst people who have access to such devices and those who do not.