Melinda- Reading Notes 1

The use of technology in the classroom is a very interesting topic to me.  Transparencies were considered high technology when I was working on my bachelors degree.  Blackboard was available, but not implemented.  Most students didn’t have laptops and those who did were not allowed to use them in the classroom.  It was almost a culture shock to come back in 2008 and see how technology use has changed.  Almost all of my teachers use powerpoints and Blackboard.  I considered perhaps the change of program could have accounted for this as well.  Criminal justice really doesn’t have a need to focus on your slide making skills as much as a business college would, so therefore technology is not as important.  Because student could be giving presentations in the business world, teachers probably feel like they should be required to expose students to the media technology.  In a way, this becomes an almost invisible component of the business professor’s teaching philosophy.  
 
Lang argues that there is a lot of time investment in implementing technology and the pay off may not be that great.  In fact, he says that new faculty shouldn’t spend more than 2 hours for any given hour of lecture (46).  I agree that the initial investment may be time consuming, but everything will be ready the next time the class is taught.  It would also be easy to change as soon as class is over or add notes to the powerpoint.  Most of my class demonstrations and presentations in the business college required powerpoints.  I used powerpoints, youtube, and even created an excel spreadsheet on demand.  It probably wouldn’t be that much more effort for me to use technology in my lectures.
 
With that being said, I do not want to solely rely on technology as Davis (453) has advised.  For some concepts it would be more practical for me to use other methods.  For example, when explaining a pyramid or Ponzi scheme powerpoint would be useless.  Use of the whiteboard and allowing students to giggle at my amazing stick-figure drawing ability or a hands on approach is far more effective.  I would also be able to stop and clarify ideas that students may be questioning.  
 
Lecture preparation was something that I felt the authors disagreed.  Lang (46) almost commanded that faculty not spend more than 2 hours per hour of lecture.  Davis (140) didn’t seem to have any problems with 2-10 hours per lecture.  I am not quite sure what my opinion is on this.  I think until I am in the classroom teaching more I can’t really offer too much of an opinion.  I am interested in what the other members of class think on the topic of class preparation.
 
I felt quite a bit of the advice on lecturing was Public Speaking 101.  I didn’t feel as if I learned anything incredibly new in either authors‘ advice.  Davis’s advice about how to signal a lecture was starting made me laugh (149).  I guess I have never really thought about or had a teacher flicker the lights or use a gavel.  I guess for my class I could play a recording of the stock market bell.