One of the big things I found out this past year is that you need to provide multiple examples in your teaching. These examples need to adequately show what it is you are trying to teach. Examples certainly can be powerful and influential.
I say all of that because of an article I read in the NEA Go! (new teacher magazine). I have had it sitting on the kitchen counter for a while now, only flipping through it today as my coffee finished brewing. One of the articles was about Technology, and whether some of the "gadgets" were necessary in our current economic times. I certainly understand the question (Are expensive tech gadgets necessary?), and believe it should be asked in conjunction with the question, "how will it be used/integrated in (into) my practice?"
Where this particular article fails is in the examples it provides. Certainly a Smartboard/Activboard is an ineffective, and overpriced tool if you only use it to go around the Internet with your kindergartners. Instead, how about talking about the big book that is typed on your activeboard? Kids can then recite with you, they can search for words (or words with particular letters/sounds) and highlight them, or they can draw a picture in the margins to show what they visualize. What about shared writing where kids handwriting is turned from scribbles into print (yeah, it can do that).
There are a myriad of things you can do. I use mine to manipulate maps, play video prior to having kids to analyze text (and highlight/note in margins), create shared writing, demonstrate non-fiction reading strategies, and a variety of other things. Sure you can teach without technology, but I'm not sure that fully prepares students for the world they are going to be a part of.
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