Technology in an English Classroom

As I am discovering various ways to use technology in the classroom through the readings, class meetings, projects, and observation of mini lessons, I seem to get discouraged because I think technology is easier to use with certain subjects. I will teach English, and my lessons will primarily be teaching reading, writing, various literature, and grammar. I have struggled with ideas to make my classroom technologically stimulating for students, and it has become a concern of mine because I don’t want to cling to old-fashioned methods of teaching. I want to move forward as a teacher. 

After examining various articles about this, I have come to the conclusion that it’s not very hard to incorporate technology into an English classroom. In fact, it might be one of the best subjects to utilize technology. English enables students to think outside the box and make use of their creative minds. They must embrace this when it comes to reading, analyzing a text and conducting presentations. Students are rarely exposed to boring Power Point presentations in English classes because English is typically not thought of to be a black and white subject area. 

Something I am excited to experiment with in the future is assigning digital presentations. While pursuing my Bachelor of Arts in English, I had to complete several “creative” presentations relating to literary themes, scenes, and various texts in general. The projects that used technology were always more interesting than the ones performed in front of the classroom. There was one presentation I did with a group and we had to act out a Toni Morrison text in our own way. Since we did a digital presentation, we were able to dress for the setting. I wore a flapper outfit because the text took place in the 1920’s. We showed our audience creativity in our presentation because the technology we used provided us with ways to express ourselves in our visual interpretation of the text. We were not a technologically advanced group of students and we had limited resources, so we had a friend edit our presentation, but students nowadays have more practice with these applications than we did. When it came time to be tested on the Toni Morrison text, I mastered the content because I spent a lot of time on the presentation. Engaging digitally with the content helped me grasp the material better as opposed to just reading notes about it. Does anyone else have any experiences of using technology in an English classroom or ideas that they would like to share?