I intend to be a Social Studies teacher in middle school, and I think that the use of computers in the classroom will be extremely important. I am a big believer of group work in the classroom, and there are a lot of uses for computers in a group setting. I think that students will work harder as part of a group, and cooperative learning is a great approach in Social Studies. I think that almost all decent Social Studies projects require outside research, and there is no better tool than the computer with access to the internet. If the class has limited computer resources, groups can take turns on the computers while other groups are doing periodical and book research. I also think that students need to pull the reports together on the computer, as opposed to handwriting a report or coloring a poster. There are a lot of students today who are much more comfortable and productive behind a keyboard than a notebook, and these kids should be given the opportunity to learn in a manner that best suits them.
A group of Jr. High students should be able to prepare and present a power point presentation, and that task would be as important as the report itself. This is to me a good example of what I think of when I think of technology integration. For computers to be integrated into the classroom, students need to use them to help research, write, and present assignments. You can do so much more with computers than just drill-and-practice or educational games if you will plan ahead and a little bit creative. There is no limit to their usefulness, particularly in a classroom with a number of learners at different academic levels. Kids can go ahead without disrupting the rest of the class, and those who have fallen behind can use computer tutorials in order to catch up with the class independently.