Benefits and Drawbacks of Continuing Technology Education Requirements

Assignment question: what are the benefits and drawbacks of the requirements for teachers to continue their professional and technological education?

Teachers need to move with the times, and unless required to, many teachers may not make the time and effort to do so.  This statement encompasses both the benefits and the drawbacks.

Having these requirements force and enable the teachers to keep up with a changing world.  Because such development is required, there are classes available for teachers.  Therefore, a major benefit is that teachers can continue to grow in their professional and technological education.

The drawbacks is the time issue: teachers don't always have a lot of extra time to spend on such classes.  Also, since such learning is required, if a teacher has acquired such knowledge through his/her own compunction, it is still necessary for them to complete the class/lecture/whatever that is required by the state, to be able to prove that it was done.

Emerging technology addaption

Assignment questions: As we have looked at some of these emerging technologies, what are your thoughts on the adoption process. Would you prefer your district be an early adopter, or wait for the data to prove its worth? If you are given leeway to use new technologies, will you be an early adopter or wait for the proof to come in?

I am the sort to wait until emerging technologies have proved themselves.  As a teacher, I will not want to learn how to use a new technology, only to discover through use that it is not useful to me, or not worth the time, money and effort that I have put into it.  Therefore, I would prefer a district that is similar, and if given my own leeway, I would wait till it had proven itself.

Multimedia in the Classroom

Assignment questions: What are the benefits of using multimedia in the classroom?  Are there any drawbacks/problems with using multimedia?  What are some specific ways you might use multimedia in your classroom?

Using multimedia in the classroom broadens what you can teach, and how the students can learn.  It gives them more ways than one to assimilate information, and more ways than one to express what they have learned.  Using multimedia a teacher can make things come alive, and come "to the classroom" that are otherwise impossible to show.  Videos and internet research can introduce students to other cultures, countries, and ways of life that they may not experience on a day to day basis. 


Multimedia lessons take time, which some teachers may not have in enough excess to be able to create meaningful multimedia activities.  This is one of the drawbacks of multimedia use in the classroom.  Also, as with any time the internet is used, there is the issue of students safety, and students wasting time.  

For me, I could see coupling videos with books: for instance, reading a book out loud with the class, and then when we have finished, watching a movie based on that book.  In history, it would also be easy to couple learning about a time in history, and then watching a movie that takes place during that time.  Internet work could also be sprinkled about in any lesson.