Teaching with technology

I my summative evaluation with my division chair yesterday we talked about my two year development plan. I am part of a team of teachers who are working to integrate the use of technology in our classrooms. It’s been two years since we started our plan and I cannot believe how fast and far we’ve grown. In out Algebra classes we are using TI-Interactive, that links all of our students graphing calculators to a collaborative group analysis of graphing or statistics. We’ve used Geometry Sketchpad as an exploration tool for just about every unit. Digital and web copies of the text book, along with One-Note, and Journal, are all programs found in daily lessons. However, all of this seems second nature now. Things I need to run my class are so varied than what I needed three years ago. The projector and tablet are used almost every lesson, switching between, note, web demos, work students, and digital images are all part of my lessons.
My lessons with the tablets have shifted the style in which I present materials. I now hand the tablet off at the start of class, and tell students to sketch a geometric shape, or find and insert an image they can find on line. We’re doing much more exploring.
However, with all of this technology is just a tool. It assists me in my teaching, but I don’t teach the technology. I can do things more efficiently with the technology available.
My hope is to have classroom sets of tablets to have in my classroom, with the eventual hopes of having every student with at tablet in the school, and electronic versions of their texts. As an educator, I hope to learn how to create more digital resources for my students to use in the class, and outside of class for review and reinforcement.