Educational Uses of Technology

I believe that recent advances in the use of technological tools represent a great opportunity for education, especially with regards to second language instruction, creativity, and storytelling. I believe this because I have used iPads for over 8 years with preschool through eighth grade students to teach Spanish and develop their creative expression skills. I have seen how technology engages the students even more and seen even the shyest of students open up when they get a chance to create videos, interactive ebooks, and stories.

There are many areas of educational technology I could talk about, such as software tools, equipment, integrative learning systems, and multimedia integration, to name a few.  For this blog post, I would like to talk about multimedia integration. Multimedia integration is a very effective way to elicit storytelling and creative expression in children as young as three years old.  In the AVENTURAS summer camp and preschool program that I produced for over eight years, students spent most of their time exploring, creating art, and playing. By giving them iPads to document (in Spanish) what they were learning, creating, or playing, they became even more engaged with using Spanish and expanding their vocabulary so they could express more sophisticated ideas or storylines. The act of documentation to have raw material for their multimedia projects help connect them to nature, their artwork or whatever they were doing even more, heping bridge the divide between the digital world and the real world.