I am kind of a 21st Century Teacher?

Since I guess I am technically part of the "younger generation," I do think I utilize a bit more technology than some older teachers would possibly use, but at the same time I do not claim to be tech-savvy with all the newest technology available for teachers, nor do I think I would try and use much of what we have available to us. For example, I hate the idea of e-books. Even though it might be a pain to drag school books from one place to another, I feel that the concrete presence of a book is so much better than a mere screen. In many ways, I would even argue that regular textbooks are actually MORE convenient than e-books. It is very easy to navigate through a textbook, flip through pages, feel them, and see the content on a bigger area of space than you would see if you were merely looking at a computer screen. On the screen there are so many technicalities that I just feel are so unnecessary, such as zooming in/out to see everything more clearly. Plus, in an actual textbook it is much easier for the students to annotate, highlight, mark it up however they want. Though this is possible in an e-book, I just feel that it's much more time consuming and once again, unnecessary.

I also just can't see myself going crazy with the technology. There's been a lot of discussion about bringing iPads into schools, and I just think that's ridiculous and such a waste of money! I didn't have an iPad for my 12 years of grade school, and I still got an excellent education. Sometimes I think people go way overboard with the technology, simply because they think it will assist in a lesson but in reality, it could take away from the lesson. In my opinion, an abuse of technology only distances the student from the teacher, which results in neither benefiting. The student will not learn, and the teacher will not accomplish his/her task. Because of this, I don't have any desire to be a crazy techy teacher, and find a lot of the most recent phenomenons unnecessary and just another obstacle to overcome.

However, I do think certain things are very helpful, such as Powerpoint or Prezi for the younger student audiences we'll be teaching. Though I'm not a teacher yet, I could see myself using Prezi in order to help keep my kids engaged and interested in what they're watching/learning about. Then there's also many sites on the web that could assist teachers in lessons, with Youtube being a major one. The educational channel could be very helpful and I think there are many videos that could useful during a lesson.

I also like the idea of Google Docs, which allows the students to edit files themselves etc. As an English teacher, this could be good for proofreading others' papers or maybe for them to see/download files I post myself, it's easy and accessible to students which I find appealing.