Integrating Technology into Teaching and Learning

As a 25-year-old, I get this comment a lot: It's easy for you because you're young.

I usually just smile and nod my head, but now I'd like to finally explain why all of those people are wrong. I'd like to explain to them that it's not easy for me. It's really hard. It's mind-boggling. It gives me headaches, too! 

The difference between me and them is that I haven't given up trying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I haven't seen these teaching fads come and go. They're so tired of constantly having to evolve, but that's kind of what our profession demands. Our students change, and we must change with them. We are teachers, which means we are (or should be) obsessed with learning. 

That being said, I'd also like to reserve the right to complain about how easy it is for new teachers to learn new things when I get to be a veteran.

Now that my rant is over, I think that technology is imperative to education. These are my reasons:

1. It makes a lot of things easier. The people I work with are brilliant, but many of them are still recording grades in an actual grade book, and then they record the same grades in the online grade book where we are required to input grades. I think it's a waste of time, but that might be because it takes me longer to grade. #newbieproblems

2. It's fun. It's a fact, when students walk into a classroom and they see the cart of laptops, they're excited. Students like technology. 

3. It's free. It helps me teach because I have so many resources to choose from and I get to use them fo' free! (usually). When I started teaching last year, I honestly used ideas from Pinterest more often than I used our textbook. I know, GASP! My teaching philosophy is a little liberal, but I'm all about an interesting approach over bland, out-of-the-textbook blahiness. Yes, I just made up my own word. Call me Shakespeare. Speaking of Shakespeare, I ask my students to create their own words during poetry. Got it from Pinterest.

4. It saves the planet. I use WAY less paper than most of my colleagues just because all of my files are online. I would like for my worksheets, quizzes, and tests to be online soon (I'm working on it). 

There are more, but now my head hurts again.