Personal Experience with the New Tools and Critical Reflection

Since the second half the the 20th century, the computer has revolutionized our educational system, altough didactical aspects have not been considered during those times. According to Stadtfeld (2004) , technical progress always goes along with social changes. That is why we have to include the innovations into our schools by using the new media so that we can keep up with the time. There have been different opinions and pedagogical approaches ("behaviorism" versus "cognitivism" versus "constructivism") to including new media in a classroom. The use of new media has to be considered carefully by the teacher before using it. But anyway, the changed social attitude towards the use of new media has entered nearly all areas of life in the 21st century which makes it necessary for schools to keep up with it as well. New media function like "cognitive tools" for the students (Jonassen 1991) and they should create freedom for what and how the students learn.

This chapter of my e-portfolio will reflect on my experience and opinion with some of the tools we talked about in the seminar. As I don’t know all the tools yet, I will decide on which tools to reflect during the process of the seminar. I won’t reflect on all the new tools and I will maybe add tools we did not use in class.

Apart from my own opinion and (maybe) experience, I will, on the basis of the theoretical input we got from the texts, give a short, critical analysis about how useful the certain tool is for school.

If you disagree or agree with me that is fine and you are very welcome to comment my input on my blog. You may also want to share something or write something completely different? That’s fine!

added: November 12, 2010