Type I and Type II Technology

Type 1 Technology- Uses technology to accomplish tasks already being done in the classroom. There is nothing innovative or future thinking about how the technology can change the way students are educated. Here are a few examples of this use of technology. A teacher posting the reading assignments on the web instead of using a text book. The teacher I had that did this did not even add pictures or anything. All the link consisted of was uploaded text or links to speeches. The most elementary use of technology that most clearly exemplifies this concept, but students have been doing it for as long as computers have been accessible, is word processing papers instead of handwriting them. If the teacher is even more willing to take risks she might have the students email their homework so there is no paper at all. Another example is taking a test on a computer instead in paper form. One of my teachers signed up our mobile lab, which is a 30 laptops on a cart, so we could take an essay style exam. He wrote the questions on the white board and we wrote our responses on the computers. What is even more sad about this scenario is that he had us print our essays so he could grade them.

Type 2 Technology- An interactive, innovative, and adaptive approach to technology's use in the classroom. This focuses more on the student's use of the technology in new ways, rather than using the technology to do things the student is used to doing. A few examples would be: a virtual recreation of an important fort in a war that the student could explore by going into different rooms to find the answers to a list of questions, a collection of art works the student could look at and analyze at his or her own pace, and a debate between the same class at a different school through an web camera.