Lessons Learned

I have learned a lot of information from the articles and videos that I watched. There were two that really stuck out to me. The Did you know? video and also the Teen Disconnect article. I can see the relevance of both and they got me thinking about how I am going to approach teaching my students.
As an English teacher, it is easy to get stuck in the rut of the teacher stands in the front of the room and lectures, the students take notes and then  regurgitate what I said when it comes time to take a test. I want to break away from that . I really believe that it is important for me to integrate technology into my lesson plans and expect my students to use technology to create projects or help them on assignments. I would not be an effective teacher if I didn't show them how to create these projects or show them the different ways that technology can help them in any field (including English). It really impacted me when the text on the video stated that we are training/teaching our students for careers that don't exist yet, and to solve problems that aren't problems yet. I have a duty to give my students the best that they can receive of me.
I also liked the article about the teen disconnect. Writing well is a very important part of English. I can understand the difficulty in switching back and forth from texting to more formal writing. There are many conventional errors when it comes to texting and I have seen them crop in students writing. I think that it is important that students do have time to write and not worry about all of the conventions and the other traits. They need time to write and de-stress. I do believe that there is a time and place for this and I agree that students who do write outside of class assignments tend to write better in class and on writing assignments. Students do learn to write well and effectively even if they have horrible conventions at first. It is all how the teacher handles it.
I know that I want to incorporate technology into my classroom and have the students become familiar and confident in using it.