Technology in the Classroom - what do you think?

Right now, I use technology in my classroom as a information source, a communication tool, and production tool. It benefits my gifted students because I have a "must complete portion" - these are for everyone. I also have an "extras" portion - these are extra videos to watch or games to play that are content based and intended to be for my gifted and talented students, who will finish the "must complete" portion quickly. It keeps my gifted students engaged and on topic, while getting to experience some different experience. Sometimes, I will have my other students ask if they can watch the videos or play the games at home, which I encourage because I want them to be excited about learning. I know that I could make this more challenging for my gifted and talented students, and I plan on continuing to work towards that. I want to be better about using Technology as a Interactive Learning Tool. A lot of these things came about over the past 12 years while I was not teaching fulltime. I really want to learn to utilize online gifted programs for my 1st grade students next year, since they don't go to Challenge until 3rd grade. This would be an easy way to engage my gifted learners. When deciding what technology to use, I will first need to identify which of my students are underachieving or struggling with perfectionism. Then I need to define what their needs are so that I can figure out the best way to address these. I think technology would be a great tool is helping these students. It will allow me to find a tool that is the right fit for each student. For the underachieving, I try to remind them that we cannot assess their brain by scanning it with a magic wand, we have to access it by the products that they create...whatever that may look like to them, but we have to have some kind of output to see where they are and where they need to go. For the perfectionism, I remind them that we aren't expecting everything to be perfect, we want to see how much they've grown and where to grow next. What about you? Do you use technology in your classroom? What do you use? Do you have suggestions for this new 1st grade teacher coming back into the classroom after 12 years?

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