Using Technology Where Technology is Foreign

There is no doubt in my mind that technology offers students an amazing opportunity to expand their bubbles of thinking and to find new outlets that allow for more effective communication. What challenges my mind however is how to incorporate the benefits of technology into classrooms with students who lack the same technologies that we are learning to, or already know how to, use. My career aspirations include joining the Teach for America program, which involves teaching at an inner city school for two years, as well the possibility of later going into “missions-education” and teaching in a third-world country somewhere. Both of these directions would lead into situations where would be dealing with poorer families (the latter more so than the former) and where the students would not have quite as much access to internet or sometimes even computers away from school.
This brings forth the challenge of incorporating technology in the classroom. It would be too easy to say “I don’t want to use technology” and get on with life, but the truth is that technology offers such a great opportunity that not using it would be depriving students of immense learning. This is why I believe that the majority of technology usage in this situation would rest solely on the educator’s shoulders. Incorporate things that students would be able to access from home or a library, but not things that are crucial to a student’s performance level within the class. For instance, you could start a class blog or Facebook page that students have the option of viewing outside of the classroom, or even to add onto that, you could give students the opportunity of making contributions to those pages during a portion of class time. By doing something simple like this you not only give them opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise have, but you would also be teaching them about tools and online programs that they could very well have to use in the professional world after schooling.
I believe that even using technology in class lessons or presentations (with ample time given in class for preparation if students are the ones presenting) would be an amazing tool to benefiting their education. Just to use modern technology in that way serves as a hook to get students interested in what they are learning. Chances are that they have had a lot of teachers who use very basic tools or blackboard methods of teaching, so they are more or less unaccustomed to technology. When you provide that method of input into your student’s lives, they becoming intrigued first by your methods of presentation, and therefore they find a new level of interest or excitement in the lesson material itself.
I know that not everyone will teach in a school that lacks technology, especially in this world which seems to advance more and more every day, but I believe that if you are put in that sort of a situation, being the bearer of technology in the classroom will raise your level of respect in the educational community.