Being Open to New Things in Your Classroom

            When I first declared a mathematics education major, I thought that I had every part of how I wanted my classroom to function figured out. I had the same mathematics teacher from 8^th grade up until I graduated high school. I liked her style of teaching, so I thought I would be fine just copying her style of teaching. However, we never used any technology in her classroom. As you can imagine, when I first started working with technology in my Geometry for teachers’ class, and now my technology for math educators class, I was out of my element. I never knew that there were so many applets and programs that could help my future students with their mathematics.

            I have pretty much completely changed my teaching philosophy from when I first declared being a mathematics education major. It has been pretty hard for me to have the mindset that I need to incorporate technology in my classroom. I have had to spend a lot of time learning how to use the technology I have found in order for it to be useful in my future classroom. I continue to learn about new “tools”, websites, and apps that I would like to introduce to my future students.

            If today’s educators are not willing to be open to new things in their classroom, specifically regarding technology, they are not doing their students much good. Technology seems to be taking over. Anywhere you look, there is technology. So, instead of shying away from using technology in the classroom because you aren’t comfortable with it, teachers should be willing to learn about all of the different types of technology that they could incorporate into their classrooms. When I say this, I do not mean that I feel a teacher should use technology as their only source of teaching. The technology must be useful in order for it to make a difference in your students’ education.