Technology Surrounds Us: Educational Blog

When some people think of technology, they think of fancy gadgets. However, some people forget that the definition of technology is tools that are developed and made to help make life simpler. Because of this people forget that pencils, paper, scissors, along with so much more, is considered technology. A good way to demonstrate this in the classroom setting is to discuss what technology is, and how it is used in everyday situation, and no one even considers the technology used, due to the human adaptations to our surroundings.

One of the best ways to have the students understand and apply their knowledge and understanding of technology is to have them make a craft, and then state what type of technology was used in making the craft. You would have everyone explain what type of technology they used, and have the next student add technology to that, without repeating what was stated before hand. This allows the students to see just how much technology is used in the everyday setting to perform a simple task.

For example in my Integrating Technology in the Classroom class, we all made hats that dealt with Easter/spring and M&M’s. However you could use anything that you wanted to when doing this project. With this project, almost everyone used paper, scissors, pencils, markers. However when going deeper into the question of what technology did you use in completing the assignment, the issue of lighting, going to the store to buy supplies, which used transportation, and the use of doors, along with so much more was discussed.

This assignment is a good way for students to realize that technology surrounds them everyday, but people are so used to technology that they forget how much technology is actually out there for them to use at their disposal. This exercise allows students to understand that their computer isn’t the only type of technology that is out there, and without technology there wouldn’t be much left to work with on everyday situations, and life would be much harder for man or woman to survive. So, not only does this exercise allow students to understand what type of technology that surrounds them, but how technology is used, and helped to make human life easier and more efficient.