Susan Busche

February 12, 2005

SLM 521

Journal Article Review

The article “It should have been stressed in all education classes” Preparing pre-service teachers to teach with technology is about how education programs are not teaching their students enough about how to use technology in their classrooms. Many teachers are only being taught the fundamentals of operating a computer. These basics include how to create a spreadsheet, use a grading program, and how to create a multi-media presentation. Teachers have minimal knowledge of technological resources, methods of teaching via such resources, and methods of assessing such activities. Many of the teachers surveyed in this article believed that they had adequate knowledge of teaching through technology and thought that that the integration of technology into instruction is important. Many of these teachers also intended to incorporate technology in their teaching on a daily to weekly basis. Of the teachers that said they had adequate knowledge of teaching through technology just over half said they could create an instructional website for use in the classroom. When these teachers were asked for technological resources for each of the disciplines (mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies) most could not list specific titles from sources they had located on the internet. Many of these same teachers felt they needed additional instruction in methods of teaching via technology. The article finds evidence that teachers need to be exposed to technological resources for teaching the four disciplines during their educational technology courses.

This article shows me how important technology is these days. While many teachers or pre-teachers, such as myself, believe they have adequate knowledge of the computer many cannot find resources to use in the classroom. I do know how to look topics up on the computer and find reputable sources from the internet, but there are still many things I need to learn. I am grateful that McDaniel forced this course on pre-teachers in the BEST program; I believe that I will learn how to teach using technology from this course and come away with many resources that I will be able to use in my classroom. It is surprising how many teachers do not know how to create online resources for their students. These resources are very helpful to students. I am excited for the resources and information that I will learn in this course.

Hardy, Michael D. (2003). It should have been stressed in all education classes: Preparing pre-teachers to teach with technology. Teaching and Teacher Education, 143, 1-18.