When I got my undergrad I did not even have to take a computer class to get my BME. We did use computer for papers and music notation. There was a SMART Board in T.Berry 209 but we never got to touch it (and my Professors used it as a projector screen for notes on Power Point) . We were not prepared for the world of Technology that was out there then and there is no way we could be ready for what we have today. This brings me to this weeks question....Are teacher education programs preparing teachers for the 21st centenary classroom?
30 Comments
11/3/2013 12:14:01 pm
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/are-teachers-of-tomorrow-prepared-to-use-innovative-tech/
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Jodi
11/4/2013 06:56:00 am
You bring up a good point - it could depend on the college/university they attend. I've based my knowledge off of the schools I have attended. There were several - my husband was in the military - and not one of them pushed technology. Of course, I also graduated over 8 years ago and technology has come a long way since then.
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Thyago
11/5/2013 12:45:00 am
" .I think it depends on the school they attend" ... Yes, I think on a big colleges like MIzzou, KU, UCLA, they already are doing this for a long time, and thats one of many things why they are big and better colleges, they think first, they tried to avoid future problems . So I think CMU is a little far beyind but never is to late to start.
Trisha Shannon
11/7/2013 11:02:14 am
I agree it depends on the institution they attend and how much flexibility they have to teach all of the new technology. And it is important for the teacher to keep up to date on what is new and research what they might not know.
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Joshua Hancock
11/3/2013 11:19:56 pm
This is a very interesting question. Overall, I would say no teacher education programs are not preparing teachers to use technology in the most effective ways. I had to take two technology courses for my undergraduate degree. One of them was required by the community college I first went to and it did not transfer to Southeast Missouri State University. Therefore, I had to take another on at SEMO. I felt like in both all we did was busy work. It was a lot of the same type of assignments as I had done in a Desktop Publishing class in high school.
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Denver price
11/4/2013 02:34:39 am
I agree with Josh on this subject it almost seems that students are teaching themselves about the new technology in classrooms. We almost have to do it ourselves and learn how to use these new tech services by trial and error to get a hang of ir, its not all iur teachers fault either cuz i have a professor now who cant even login to the computer cuz the school hasnt gave her a login name, i think this falls on the education supervisor or head of deprartment to set their employees up for success
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Ruth Ann Pfremmer
11/4/2013 03:26:42 am
Thank you for your insight about whether teachers are actually trained for classroom technology. As an instructor in a technical field I was not specifically trained to be a teacher. I was a registered technologist working in the field of radiology and had completed a bachelor's degree. These are the qualification to teach in a technical field - seldom are technical area instructors formally trained to teach, unless the pursue this degree after they begin teaching. When I began teaching, I was required to attend New Teacher Institute and complete 2 or 3 additional courses. This DESE requirement is no longer in effect. I did not know how to use many classroom technology items but the school I work for offers many training sessions for new (and old) employees and this helps a lot. Since technology is always changing I continue to attend training sessions, some mandatory others optional. I figured people who actually completed a teaching degree were better prepared than I was but after reading your post...I guess not.
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Thyago
11/5/2013 12:47:24 am
" Overall, I would say no teacher education programs are not preparing teachers to use technology in the most effective ways. " I agree 100% on that, its like we have to be the teacher and the student at the same time, having feedback from yourselfs. And we should have someone that could teaches us everything, but for right now this class is helping me a lot.
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Morgan Goetschel
11/8/2013 12:07:59 am
I would agree with josh, that no program is perfect. However if schools want to start to produce more effective teachers in the classroom then they need to start educating them on what technology is already out there and also where technology is heading. Even with the professors here I have had some that struggle with the basics of turning the projector on, so what does that say about there ability to tech future teachers how to use technology.
Derek Lannigan
11/8/2013 02:34:18 am
I agree that most of the tech classes that I took during school were mainly going over things that I already knew how to do. Indirectly though I did end up learning how to use different forms of tech by using smart boards and programs for presentations and projects. It would be nice if there could be an 8 week course that focused on introducing and demonstrating appropriate and effective ways to use different forms of tech.
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Jodi McSwain
11/4/2013 06:44:00 am
I don't believe that teachers are being prepared enough for using current technology in their classrooms. Many upcoming teachers may know about some technology, but through the use of their own devices. It's not like we have SmartBoards at home to play with though...
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Joshua Hancock
11/5/2013 10:20:23 pm
I feel like teacher education programs have not changed much over the last few years, despite the increasing importance of technology. Young people are using technology every day. They will need to use it in the work place in the future. Therefore, we need to be able to integrate it into our lessons so students will both be interested in the material and be familiar with it in the future. I remember in some of my education classes the professor would say that we needed to use technology to enhance our lessons as much as possible. However, they would never give clear cut examples or teach us how to use the technology. Changes need to be made across the country to help pre-service teachers be better equipped to use technology in their classrooms.
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Alanna Dennison
11/10/2013 02:17:39 pm
I agree that teacher education programs have not changed, however this may not be the worst thing. I feel that too much emphasis is placed on technology, especially in the younger students, and I think that the emphasis of teachers should still be education and communication above technological advancement of students. I feel that technology should be a part of their job, but I do not think this should be the focus of teacher education.
Derek Lannigan
11/8/2013 02:42:26 am
The toughest thing about teaching future teacher about using tech that could potentially be in their classroom is the fact that a new teacher truly never knows what they might end up with. My wife is lucky in the fact that she teaches in a smaller school and they are completely MAC throughout the school and everything they use is either I Pad, Mac Book Pro, or I Cloud. The school that I taught at didn't even have smart boards in half the class room. The point to what I am trying to say is, there may not be an appropriate way to prepare teachers to use the tech that potentially be in their rooms.
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Jodi
11/9/2013 10:22:42 pm
It's fantastic when a school will strive to have the technology available for the students to use. We've been talking about the lack of technology in our district lately and what we're going to do if the new MAP testing is all online. Time and time again I've heard people saying that we'll never have the technology we need b/c the Board won't approve it! It's a rural school, but someone needs to wake up and realize that the kids graduating from our school will miss out on a lot of future opportunities by not having the education and experience with technology they'll use in the workforce later!
Denver price
11/4/2013 10:50:14 pm
https://www.herffjonesnystrom.com/index.cfm?fa=Teachers.10June
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Thyago
11/5/2013 12:42:55 am
A hard question to answer but in my opinion we are not ready. This is the first class that im taking to really learn about techonology here in the USA, and i know back in brasil just a few colleges are having those classes. And I still we should have more classes like that under the graduated program, but looks like people are not thinking on a big deal, but they are wrong... We all know how to use smart phones and computer but how they can be helpful to the students and professor in classroom or to help the kids to learn faster and better?!?! So in my opinion we are not ready, we know the basics and that is it.
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Ethan Mignard
11/8/2013 04:31:24 am
I agree. Classes that teach future educators to utilize the vast range of technologies are pretty few and far between. Most college students know how to use technology, and would be easily able to pick up ideas about how to implement new technologies into their classroom, but are simply not given the opportunity to learn.
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Prof Myers
11/7/2013 09:50:20 am
This is a test comment
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Trisha Shannon
11/7/2013 10:57:04 am
I think yes and no, most schools are up to date on the new information and can prepare students for what to expect. But technology is always changing so it can be difficult to keep up with what is new. And it depends on the budget of the school, if a school can have the latest and greatest of everything then it will prepare the students. But if the budget doesn't allow it, then it can be difficult to have the students prepared for the 21 century classroom.
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Travis Dalton
11/9/2013 12:02:47 am
I agree with the comment of the budget. It is easier to train people and get them ready if you have the availability to keep everything up to date. Sadly, that is not a realistic ideal for a lot of areas now. They have to do the best with what they are offered but I also think some of the responsibility falls back on the students to learn and prepare themselves as well.
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Morgan Goetschel
11/8/2013 12:03:02 am
I think it depends on where you go to school. Where my girlfriend went to school she had to use a great deal of technology when she was going after her undergrad. I do feel that all schools should be pushing to teach technology in every degree field especially when you are working with future teachers. This is because the world is ever changing into a more technology driven society.
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Derek Lannigan
11/8/2013 02:29:09 am
I believe that colleges are beginning to focus more on technology in their curriculum. I know when I was working on my BS it was required to take technology courses that taught students how to use commonly used programs and equipment. The problem is even if students are taught how to use the equipment and programs that are available the school that they are at, this may not necessarily prepare them for what they will need to use in the work force. this is why almost every company has training periods for their new employees to get them on track to being tech savvy for their position. I do think that if there were more tech classes in our college curriculum that it might give graduating students more of an advantage during the hiring process.
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Ethan Mignard
11/8/2013 04:22:51 am
I would say that no, teacher education programs are not doing a good enough job of preparing teachers for the world of technology. This is a generalization of course, there are teacher education programs that do adequately prepare teachers to use available technologies. I think the main difference between programs that do prepare teachers to use the wide range of available technologies and those that do not is funding. It's difficult for an institution to educate teachers about technologies that they don't have because of funding reasons.
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Travis Dalton
11/8/2013 11:59:48 pm
I would also say no that teacher education programs are not good enough to prepare teachers for all the new tech. However, when I was in school most of my teachers had been out of college for a while and they may have not had the opportunity as much as young teachers had to learn the technology. Even in my experience now the most technology we use in the class room is a projector and PowerPoint. I also felt that growing up our generation knew more about technology than the people teaching us because we used it all the time and we were always curious and exploring new avenues that computers and other tech had to offer.
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Dustyn Yung
11/10/2013 01:15:56 pm
I agree! Technology is always changing and it is hard to keep up on things. So I agree that no teacher education program is good enough when it comes to using new technology. You also may learn one way in school, but have to use a different tool at the school you actually get a job at depending on their funding and what they have to use.
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Dustyn Yung
11/10/2013 01:13:24 pm
When I started my student teaching for physical education I had to take a four week class to prepare us before teaching. One day out of that whole class we had a tech person from CMU come teach us different ways you can use a smartboard. This info went through one ear and right through the other. I think I didn't retain a bunch of it because he through so much info out at us in one class period. If we had taken a class for this I believe we could be better teachers by understanding how to use different instructional technology devices.
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Alanna Dennison
11/10/2013 02:15:22 pm
Like many other students mentioned, I believe it is dependent on the institution and their budget. However, even with a tight budget, all campus' have computers, and there is a lot of information that can be learned this way without having the specific devices. This said, technology changes frequently and I feel that it would be very challenging to keep up with these constant changes.
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Lynn Royer
11/13/2013 01:28:52 pm
I feel that Teacher Education minimally prepares for the student of the 21st Century. I listened to a Dr. speak at our Professional Development last fall about what the 21st Century student is like, and like it or not, that student is the Online Learner, and if we do not know how to instruct online, then we are very unprepared for the future student.
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Lynn Royer
3/16/2014 07:37:43 am
I also agree that although students that are in Education Programs in universities and colleges are being taught to use technology to be able to transition to the classroom, that they also need to be prepared in so many ways to keep up to date. I teach and am around technology all the time, and honest to goodness I don't feel I will ever be able to keep up with the paces.
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Class BlogThis blog is for class conversations for Ed 514 at Central Methodist University. We invite input form other teachers about how they use technology in their classrooms. Archives
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