Elementary Technology Teachers teach various hardware, software, and interactive devices and integrate technologies. We spend time teaching how to use technology so that students can apply these skills in other areas. ISTE's National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) are designed for students, teachers and administrators. With these standards as guides for educators, tech teachers support all of these groups in their efforts to use and integrate technologies in their own lessons, classes and schools.
In our school we have found it beneficial for students in the lab to learn about and interact with the SMARTBoard, Airliner Tablet/wireless mouse, Senteo (student voters) and the document camera. Other devices are used in the lab too – cameras, probes, video camera, and computer microscopes. Students learn how to use interactive devices and apply tech skills in their classroom without the "regular teacher" spending as much time teaching tech skills. With the different tech skill levels of teachers and students, both groups have enjoyed teaching each other.
Fortunately, SmartBoard and Promethean lessons for curriculum topics are springing up everyday. In our quest of encouraging everyone to integrate technologies, we find that we do not have many of the tech How-To... lessons for interactive whiteboards. We technology teachers are joining together to create and share lessons in support of our schools’ technology needs.
I have have invited elementary tech teachers in my district to old fashioned face-to-face-make-and-take sessions to create and share Technology How-To... lessons with the new SMART Notebook version 10 tools and the interactive toolkit. Kind of like a Treat-Trade at holiday time - we will Trade-some-Tricks for our technology classes.
We would like some more input and share ideas with you too. Consider the Elementary Technology Teachers ning and join a conversation. Hope to see you there - or share your comments here!
