Rebekah Young

EDU 225
October 18, 2015

As technology has evolved, it has become integrated more into

the classrooms to help actively engage students and overall enhance
instruction. Technology has grown and become more advanced;
teachers are now starting to find new ways to incorporate technology
into their lessons to help improve students learning. Technology is a
great tool that really helps teachers deliver their information to their
students, in both a fun and informational way. Technology allows for
teachers to become creative and make their lessons in a way in which
students will connect and really understand the information.
In a high school English classroom setting, information that is
discussed can be very monotonous, but with the use of technology
teachers can spice up the lesson and really make the material
meaningful. As Thiele, Mai, and Post discuss that education in todays
world has become more about learning to access information (2014).
It is important that teachers use technology in their classrooms
because they are teaching their students how to use it more
productively and this will help students learn the content better and it
will help prepare them for their futures. Using technology in the
classroom enables teachers to create interactive learning objects for

student use (Thiele, Mai, and Post 2014). There are different ways that
it can be used in the classroom to help enhance instruction, using
PowerPoints, videos, or blog sites are all great ways that teachers can
use technology in an English classroom.
Many times students can be shy and or do not want to
participate in classroom discussions, this can really affect their
experience in the classroom; by creating blog posts in which students
can access, they can become more involved. Providing a variety of
opportunities both in and out of the classroom can really help them
and their overall success. Quesenberry, Saewitz,, and Kantrowitz writes
that, The use of course blogs led to multiple positive self-reported
student learning outcomes (2014). Blogs empower teachers to further
their instruction outside of the classroom, which helps students
become more involved with the information that they are learning.
Blogs have also been shown to support critical thinking, and
engagement (Quesenberry, Saewitz,, and Kantrowitz, 2014). This
should always be the end goal and encouraging students to go out and
share their own personal opinions will help students will allow them to
have a better understanding and it will can make the class fun.
Technology not only allows students to learn how to critically
think, but using different devices helps teachers create a classroom
that students want to be apart of. When making lessons teachers can
use technology to reach out to their students and this becomes

beneficial because students can make connections to a difficult

concept. When it comes to complex literary works, teachers can use
videos to show their students to help them understand the plot line
better; for example when reading Beowulf, teachers could show a short
clip from YouTube to help their students understand the story line
better. Technology is a useful tool that helps make the process of
teaching and learning easier (Safitry, Mantoro, Ayu, Mayumi, Dewanti,
and Azmeela, 2015). Technology has become a way of teaching, and it
is an important tool that has helped enrich, develop skills, and
motivate students to not only learn the content information, but also
overall promote their learning experience. The more it is integrated in
the classroom, the better students will be at using it and the better
prepared they will be for the digital world future.

References
Quesenberry, K. A., Saewitz, D., & Kantrowitz, S. (2014). Blogging in
the Classroom:

Using WordPress Blogs with BuddyPress Plugin as a

Learning Tool. Journal

Of Advertising Education, 18(2), 5-17.

Safitry, T. S., Mantoro, T., Ayu, M. A., Mayumi, I., Dewanti, R., &
Azmeela, S. (2015).

Teachers' Perspectives and Practices in

Applying Technology to Enhance

Learning in the Classroom.

International Journal Of Emerging Technologies In

Learning, 10(3),

10-14. doi:10.3991/ijet.v10i3.4356

Thiele, A. K., Mai, J. A., & Post, S. (2014). The Student-Centered

Classroom of the 21st

Century: Integrating Web 2.0 Applications and

Other Technology to Actively Engage Students. Journal Of Physical

Therapy Education, 28(1), 80-93 14p