Secondary Social Studies Teachers' Perceptions of Effective Technology Practice http://www.ijcit.com/archives/volume2/issue2/Paper020214.pdf

I chose this article because it deals with technology integration in a social studies classroom, which is something that I deal with on a daily basis. I was interested to find out if the author of the paper, and the teachers surveyed for the paper had some of the same issues I have. It turns out they are similar.

                The article starts with some of the barriers to successful integration that they found through surveys and interviews with teachers. The largest barriers seem to be lack of access to technology/ consistency of tech, not enough time/lack of technological skill. I would agree with these three, and I think it is important because in my opinion they are listed in order. The first barrier in my classroom we overcame was access to technology.  When I used to have to sign up for the computer lab, and take my entire class there, I often would choose to do something else I could get done in my classroom. After gaining access to tech, the consistency of the tech came in to play. We had to deal with problems like access to wifi, and the fact that our system couldn't handle all of the students online at once. We are in the latter stages of fixing that problem.  Finally, the lack of time/technological skill. I completely agree with this barrier. It is very hard for teachers to find the time to train themselves, or to be trained in new technology. Even if teachers can find the time, often times it is hard to find experts in the building to do the training. Once the teacher finally feels like they are trained enough to implement it in class, they have to take precious time away from content teaching to teach the students the new tech. All of these are barriers that need to be overcome.

                In my school, as I stated earlier, the access to tech/consistency of tech are being dealt with or are no longer an issue. The third is the biggest barrier. After the initial introduction to the iPad, we were basically told to train ourselves, or we were offered some very broad/vague professional development. According to the article, which I very much agree with, there needs to be technology experts on staff to help teachers integrate it to their classrooms. While we can all learn on our own, it is sometimes hard to find time between teaching, grading, and our personal lives to make that work. Having an expert around would help greatly.

                The article goes on to say that secondary social studies teachers believe that even though some of these barriers are tough to overcome, they should be overcome.  According to the article, technology in a social studies classroom can extends learning to the home, prepares students for citizenship in the 21^st century, offer access to content not available in traditional classrooms, enhance content, and increases communication among. I agree with all of these, especially access to content and increased communication. In my room, the students now have access to my PowerPoints, Youtube videos that I send them to enhance the lesson and other sites so they can learn more on their own. As far as communication, I actually had to set a time that the students were no longer allowed to contact me at night. Using the messaging app, or email, or the wall on Edmodo, students were asking me questions a lot more than before the technology was available.

                I agree with the majority of this article. It outlines the same problems I have been having, or had in my own social studies classroom. Once they are overcome, technology does enhance learning and communication and is in general a good tool.